1. (n.) One who keeps, or is entrusted with, secrets or notes.

2. (n.) A person employed to write orders, letters, dispatches, public or private papers, records, and the like; an official scribe, amanuensis, or writer; one who attends to correspondence, and transacts other business, for an association, a public body, or an individual.

3. (n.) An officer of state whose business is to superintend and manage the affairs of a particular department of government, and who is usually a member of the cabinet or advisory council of the chief executive; as, the secretary of state, who conducts the correspondence and attends to the relations of a government with foreign courts; the secretary of the treasury, who manages the department of finance; the secretary of war, etc.

4. (n.) A piece of furniture, with conveniences for writing and for the arrangement of papers; an escritoire.

5. (n.) The secretary bird.