Other forms: secretaries
A secretary is the person who handles the letters, calls, diary and paperwork for somebody else or for an organisation. The job title is less common than it was — many of the same duties are now done by a personal assistant or an office manager — but the word is far from gone.
It has two more formal senses that catch learners out. In government, a Secretary is a senior minister: the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State. And in a club or a committee, the secretary is the elected member who keeps the minutes and the correspondence, which is unpaid and quite different from the office job. Note the spelling, which is a reliable trap: secret plus ary, and the middle e is often left out.
1nounsecretarySomebody employed to handle letters, calls and appointments in an office.
“The secretary put the call through.”
synonyms: assistant, PA
2nounseniorA senior government minister.
“The Foreign Secretary flew out that evening.”
3nounmemberThe member of a club or committee who keeps the records and correspondence.
“She has been secretary of the tennis club for years.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
secretary is a job.
Also accepted in games: assistant
Latin secretus meant private or hidden — a secretary was originally the person entrusted with your secrets, the one allowed to read what nobody else could. The modern job kept the confidentiality and lost the mystery.
Proto-Indo-European
*krey-
Latin
secrētus — private, secret
English, today
secretary
Built from
From Medieval Latin - secrētārius (“one entrusted with secrets”), from Latin secrētus (“private, secret”), past participle of secerno (“to separate, set apart”), from se- (“apart”) + cerno (“to separate”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA