in petto
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of in petto
Literally, “in (the) breast”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Many American Catholics hope that Pius XII may have created New York's Archbishop Francis J. Spellman a Cardinal in petto when the American prelate was at the Vatican a month ago.
From Time Magazine Archive
Both, as a matter of fact, may now be Cardinals in petto, i.e., in the Pope's breast.
From Time Magazine Archive
A machine compared with whose perfect sensitiveness and adjustment the highest human intellect is but a coarse clumsy replica, in petto.
From Death—and After? by Annie Wood Besant
Another said he did not see how that could be, and the inventor of the brave scheme, which was still in petto, said that he would try to show him.
From Imaginary Interviews by William Dean Howells
This is a project to fright away answerers, and make the poor advocates for religion believe, he still keepeth further vengeance in petto.
From The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 03 Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 1 by Jonathan Swift
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
