different between mystery vs privity

English

Etymology

From Middle English mysterie, from Anglo-Norman misterie (Old French mistere), from Latin mysterium, from Ancient Greek ????????? (must?rion, “a mystery, a secret, a secret rite”), from ?????? (múst?s, “initiated one”), from ???? (mué?, “I initiate”), from ??? (mú?, “I shut”). Displaced native Old English ?er?ne.

Pronunciation

• enPR: m?s?t?r?, m?s?tr?, IPA^(key): /?m?st??i/, /?m?st?i/
• Hyphenation: mys?te?ry, myst?ery

Noun

mystery (countable and uncountable, plural mysteries)

1. Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown. [From XIV century.]
2. Someone or something with an obscure or puzzling nature.
3. (obsolete) A secret or mystical meaning. [From XIV century.]
   • 1567, Matteo Bandello, Certain Tragical Discourses of Bandello, tr. Geffraie Fenton:

     ...and, not knowing the meaning or misterie of her pollicie, forgat no termes of reproche or rigorous rebuke against his chast doughter.

4. A religious truth not understandable by the application of human reason alone (without divine aid). [From XIV century.]
   • 1744 (first printed), Jonathan Swift, A Sermon on the Trinity

     If God should please to reveal unto us this great mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy religion, we should not be able to understand them, unless he would bestow on us some new faculties of the mind.

5. (archaic outside Eastern Orthodoxy) A sacrament. [From XV century.]
   • 1809, Sir Robert Ker Porter, Travelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden: During the Years 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808:

     There are seven mysteries, or sacraments, in the Greek church, viz. baptism, the chrism (a rite peculiar to this church), the eucharist, confession, ordination, marriage, and the holy oil.

6. (chiefly in the plural) A secret religious celebration, admission to which was usually through initiation. [From XV century.]
7. (Catholicism) A particular event or series of events in the life of Christ. [From XVII century.]

8. A craft, art or trade; specifically a guild of craftsmen.
   • 1776, Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

     The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, would all be losers.

Synonyms

• roun (obsolete)

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Anglo-Norman misterie.

Noun

mystery

1. Alternative form of mysterie (“mystery”)

Etymology 2

From Old French mistere.

Noun

mystery

1. Alternative form of mysterie (“duty”)

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman priveté, privitee et al., Old French priveté, from privé + -té.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??v?ti/

Noun

privity (countable and uncountable, plural privities)

1. (obsolete) A divine mystery; something known only to God, or revealed only in holy scriptures. [12th–16th c.]
2. (now rare, archaic) Privacy, secrecy. [from 13th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ix:

     Him oft and oft I askt in priuitie, / Of what loines and what lignage I did spring […].

3. (obsolete) A private matter, a secret. [14th–17th c.]
4. (archaic, in the plural) The genitals. [from 14th c.]
5. (law) A relationship between parties seen as being a result of their mutual interest or participation in a given transaction, e.g. contract, estate, etc. [from 16th c.]
6. The fact of being privy to something; knowledge, compliance. [from 16th c.]
   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, I.14:

     But this acknowledgement was made without the privity of his wife, whose vicious aversion he was obliged, in appearance, to adopt.

Derived terms

• horizontal privity
• vertical privity