secret police

American  

noun

1. a police force that functions as the enforcement arm of a government's political policies and whose activities, which often include surveillance, intimidation, and physical violence as a means of suppressing dissent, are usually concealed from the public.

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secret police British  

noun

1. a police force that operates relatively secretly to check subversion or political dissent

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Etymology

Origin of secret police

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

secret police

And critics claimed the company’s “Service Department,” designed to see that workers remained “sober and industrious,” was nothing more than a secret police force.

From Barron's ● May 20, 2026

It is completely understandable to raise concerns about a tattoo associated with the Nazi secret police; nobody should be regarded as a pedant for doing so.

From Slate ● Apr. 13, 2026

Rivas was the personal secretary for Chile's infamous secret police chief Manuel Contreras from 1973 to 1976.

From BBC ● Apr. 7, 2026

An agent for the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s secret police, arranged an introduction between Mercader and Sylvia Ageloff, a left-wing social worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., whose sister had once been Trotsky’s secretary.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026

In the old country, any whisper of a challenge to authority could bring the secret police in their black V.W.’s.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez