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

When Tippy Amundson was in middle school, she read the diary of a teenager hiding from the secret police.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

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

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

Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, refuted descriptions of ICE as a secret police force.

From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2025

“The flies are awful secret police that tear us as if we were carrion,” Hal tells her.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman