secretary

American  

[sek-ri-ter-ee] / ˈsɛk rɪˌtɛr i /

noun

• secretaries
  plural

1. a person, usually an official, who is in charge of the records, correspondence, minutes of meetings, and related affairs of an organization, company, association, etc..

   the secretary of the Linguistic Society of America.

2. a person employed to handle correspondence and do routine work in a business office, usually involving taking dictation, typing, filing, and the like.

3. private secretary.

4. (often initial capital letter) an officer of state charged with the superintendence and management of a particular department of government, as a member of the president's cabinet in the U.S..

   Secretary of the Treasury.

5. Also called diplomatic secretary. a diplomatic official of an embassy or legation who ranks below a counselor and is usually assigned as first secretary, second secretary, or third secretary.

6. a piece of furniture for use as a writing desk.

7. Also called secretary bookcase. a desk with bookshelves on top of it.

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secretary British  

/ ˈsɛkrətrɪ, -ərɪ /

noun

1. a person who handles correspondence, keeps records, and does general clerical work for an individual, organization, etc

2. the official manager of the day-to-day business of a society or board

3. (in Britain) a senior civil servant who assists a government minister

4. (in the US and New Zealand) the head of a government administrative department

5. (in Britain) See secretary of state

6. (in Australia) the head of a public service department

7. diplomacy the assistant to an ambassador or diplomatic minister of certain countries

8. another name for secretaire

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• secretaryship
  noun
• subsecretary
  noun
• subsecretaryship
  noun
• undersecretaryship
  noun
• secretarial
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• secretaries
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of secretary

1350–1400; Middle English secretarie one trusted with private or secret matters; confidant < Medieval Latin sēcrētārius < Latin sēcrēt ( um ) secret (noun) + -ārius -ary

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Explanation

If you handle the correspondence and clerical work for your boss or your company, you are a secretary. One of your duties as a secretary is to open the mail. Today, the preferred term for the kind of secretary who works in an office is administrative assistant. The noun secretary can also refer to the person who is in charge of an administrative department in the government, like the Secretary of Defense. A secretary can also be a piece of furniture — specifically, a type of writing desk.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

secretary secretaries

“We were caught flat-footed by the drone warfare in Ukraine and Russia,” Emil Michael, the Defense Department’s under secretary for research and engineering, said at the WSJ Tech conference Wednesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026

Becerra spent more than 25 years in Congress before he was appointed California attorney general and, later, secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026

The foreign secretary met Marco Rubio at the meeting in Atlanta last week.

From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026

A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, she had served as the secretary of the interior under former president Joe Biden, the first Native American to serve as a US cabinet secretary.

From Barron's ● Nov. 4, 2026

The envelope read: "To the Honorable Don Sancho Panza, Governor of Barataria Island, in his own hands or in the hands of his secretary."

From "Adventures of Don Quixote" by Argentina Palacios

It was the third night of an annual conference for secretaries of state, drawing participants from red and blue states.

From Salon ● Oct. 26, 2026

But there were also 961,610 “medical secretaries and administrative assistants.”

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 21, 2026

The Theranos board of directors included luminaries such as former U.S. secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, and former U.S.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026

His press secretaries have sometimes had their public statements undermined by presidential pronouncements.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026

Through the end of April and into May, a team of sixteen editors, reporters, and secretaries worked twelve-plus-hour days going through the thousands of pages Sheehan had brought back from Boston.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin

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Related Words

• assistant
• clerk
• executive secretary

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