Other forms: secured, securing, secures
Secure means firmly fixed, or protected from danger. A secure fixing, a secure building, feel secure.
The verb means both to fasten something firmly — secure the rope — and to obtain something after effort: secure a place, secure funding. That second sense is common in formal writing and is worth having. In computing, secure means protected against attack, and the padlock in a browser means a secure connection. Note security, which does duty for all of them, and job security, which means the confidence that you will still be employed next year.
1adjectivesecureFirmly fixed and unlikely to move.
“Make sure the ladder is secure before you go up.”
2adjectivesafeSafe from danger or attack.
“The building is a good deal more secure than it looks.”
3verbobtainTo obtain something after effort.
“They secured the funding in the last week.”
4adjectiveconfidentConfident and free from worry.
“She feels secure there in a way she never did before.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
secure is a state of safety or firmness.
Also accepted in games: safe
Latin securus is se-, without, plus cura, care — literally free from care. The same word gives sure and, at one remove, curious, which is full of care. Security began as a state of mind and became a state of the locks.
Latin
sēcūrus — of persons, free from care, quiet, easy; in a bad sense, careless, reckless; of things, tranquil, also free from danger, safe, secure
English, today
secure
Built from
Latin sēcūrus (“of persons, free from care, quiet, easy; in a bad sense, careless, reckless; of things, tranquil, also free from danger, safe, secure”), from sē- (“without”) + cūra (“care”); see cure. a doublet of sure and the now obsolete or dialectal a doublet of sicker.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA