secrets

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of secret.

   The diplomat carried state secrets that could topple a government.

   Over the years the old house gathered secrets no living person could explain.

   Note

   One meaning belongs to the plural alone. In archaic English, secrets could name the genital organs, a use readers now meet in older texts rather than in speech. Everywhere else the plural is entirely regular: state secrets, a house full of secrets. The same spelling also serves as the verb for hiding something away, so in "she secrets it" the word is a verb, not a noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of secret.

   The squirrel secrets acorns throughout the garden long before winter arrives.

   The smuggler secrets contraband inside hollowed-out furniture to avoid detection.

   Note

   A verb of physical hiding that pairs readily with the particle away. In Constance Markey's Calvino: a journey toward postmodernism (1999), Pin secrets a weapon away in the forest. The verb always takes an object, and a pronoun object sits between verb and particle: secrets it away, never secrets away it.

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