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PlainSpell

secretary

/ˈsɛk.(ɹ)əˌtɛɹ.i/noun, verb

secretary is spelled S-E-C-R-E-T-A-R-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is secratary: about 370 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 30 of all searches for the word. Secretary is a noun meaning “A person who keeps records, takes notes and handles general clerical work”. The plural of secretary is secretaries.

How many letters and syllables are in secretary?

Letters9: S-E-C-R-E-T-A-R-Y
Syllables4 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing89 times per million words; the 1,191st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched2; the most searched, secratary, about 370 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell secretary?

Secretary is spelled S-E-C-R-E-T-A-R-Y. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 26 of the searches for secretary in either form.

secretarythe right spelling10,800 searches a month
secratarya in place of e370 searches a month
secreterye in place of a70 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is secretary?

Secretary appears 89 times per million words in written English, the 1,191st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce secretary?

  • UK /ˈsɛk.ɹə.tə.ɹi/
  • UK /ˈsɛk.ɹə.tɹi/
  • US /ˈsɛk.(ɹ)əˌtɛɹ.i/

Secretary has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-secretary.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of secretary

  • secretaries plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • secretarying participle, present
  • secretaried participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does secretary mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A person who keeps records, takes notes and handles general clerical work.

    I have a personal secretary to help me organize my clients.

  2. 2

    The head of a department of government.

  3. 3

    A managerial or leading position in certain non-profit organizations, such as political parties, trade unions, international organizations.

    Ban Ki-Moon was a secretary general of the United Nations.

  4. 4

    USA type of desk, secretary desk; a secretaire.

  5. 5

    A secretary bird, a bird of the species Sagittarius serpentarius.

  6. 6

    obsoleteSomeone entrusted with a secret; a confidant.

  7. 7

    obsoleteSomeone employed as a scribe for personal correspondence.

verb

  1. 1

    To serve as a secretary of.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate secretary?

Wiktionary records 6 abbreviations of secretary: Sec'y, sec, sec'y, sec., secr., secy.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Secretary in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsecrétaire (person keeping records and handling clerical…), messager serpentaire (sagittarius serpentarius)
GermanSekretär, Sekretärin (person keeping records and handling clerical…), Staatssekretär (head of a department of government), Schreibsekretär (type of desk)
Portuguesesecretário, secretária (person keeping records and handling clerical…), escrivaninha (type of desk)
Spanishsecretario, secretaria (person keeping records and handling clerical…), serpentario (sagittarius serpentarius), escribanía (type of desk)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does secretary come from?

From Medieval Latin secrētārius (“one entrusted with secrets”), from Latin secrētus (“private, secret”), past participle of secernere (“to separate, set apart”), from se- (“apart”) + cernere (“to separate”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after secretary