Synonyms of secretly

secretly

adverb

as in privately

in a manner intended to prevent knowledge or awareness by others

the girl secretly told her friends about the birthday party so it would be a surprise to the birthday girl

Synonyms & Similar Words

• privately
• confidentially
• in private
• intimately
• backstage
• in camera
• covertly
• clandestinely
• inwardly
• à deux
• tête-à-tête
• surreptitiously
• furtively
• secretively
• stealthily
• sneakily
• conspiratorially
• collusively
• underhandedly
• sotto voce
• underground
• undercover
• offstage
• offscreen
• underhanded
• underhand

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• publicly
• openly

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of secretly

The bedroom selfie Flora secretly sends her the morning after is the final straw impelling Carla to file for divorce. — Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2026

The Arctic Frost investigation was later revealed to have involved Smith’s team secretly obtaining the phone records of several Republican lawmakers. — Jack Birle, The Washington Examiner, 30 Sep. 2026

Those were among the comments that came to light last year after an LAPD whistleblower secretly recorded his colleagues in a unit that screens police recruits. — Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 30 Sep. 2026

But production secretly cast Gina as well, running her through the same intense regimen of diet, exercise, dental work, and surgery meant to surprise Kari at the finale’s grand reveal. — Ryan Coleman, Entertainment Weekly, 29 Sep. 2026

Jerusalem — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly visited the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and met with the country’s president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, an Israeli source familiar with the visit told CNN. — Tal Shalev, CNN Money, 28 Sep. 2026

Mohammad Rasoulof, the Iranian filmmaker who secretly left his country in 2024 after being sentenced to eight years in prison, will receive the Kurosawa Akira Award at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival. — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 28 Sep. 2026

Certain that Kaczynski is the man responsible for a string of bombings that killed three people and injured 23 others, Miller secretly travels to his isolated cabin in the Montana woods. — Jane Lacroix, PEOPLE, 26 Sep. 2026

To this day, third-party researchers continue to uncover more evidence of how OpenAI's models were secretly scheming and developing ways to hack Hugging Face. — Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 25 Sep. 2026