different between pretend vs secrete

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman pretendre, Middle French pretendre (French prétendre (“to claim, demand”)), from Latin praetendere, present active infinitive of praetend? (“put forward, hold out, pretend”), from prae- (“pre-”) + tend? (“stretch”); see tend.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p???t?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd
• Hyphenation: pre?tend

Verb

pretend (third-person singular simple present pretends, present participle pretending, simple past and past participle pretended)

1. To claim, to allege, especially when falsely or as a form of deliberate deception. [from 14th c.]
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, XVIII.23:

     "After what past at Upton, so soon to engage in a new amour with another woman, while I fancied, and you pretended, your heart was bleeding for me!"

   • 2009 April 13, “Vanity publishing”, in The Economist:

     I have nothing but contempt for people who hire ghost-writers. But at least most faux authors have the decency to pretend that they are sweating blood over "their" book.

2. To feign, affect (a state, quality, etc.). [from 15th c.]
   • 2007 October 29, The Guardian, London:

     Gap and other clothes manufacturers should stop using small subcontractors because they are difficult to control. Instead, they should open up their own fully-owned production facilities so that they cannot pretend ignorance when abuses are committed.

3. To lay claim to (an ability, status, advantage, etc.). [from 15th c.] (originally used without to)
   • 1682, John Dryden, The Medal

     Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend.

   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.25:

     People observed the diversity of schools and the acerbity of their disputes, and decided that all alike were pretending to knowledge which was in fact unattainable.

4. To make oneself appear to do or be doing something; to engage in make-believe.
   • 2003 January 23, Duncan Campbell, The Guardian, London:

     Luster claimed that the women had consented to sex and were only pretending to be asleep.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To hold before, or put forward, as a cloak or disguise for something else; to exhibit as a veil for something hidden.
6. (transitive, obsolete) To intend; to design, to plot; to attempt.
7. (transitive, obsolete) To hold before one; to extend.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.11:

     Pastorella […] Was by the Captaine all this while defended, / Who, minding more her safety then himselfe, / His target alwayes over her pretended […].

Usage notes

This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive. See Appendix:English catenative verbs

Related terms

• pretender
• pretense
• pretension
• pretentious
• pretentiousness

Translations

Further reading

• pretend in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• pretend in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Adjective

pretend (not comparable)

1. Not really what it is represented as being; imaginary, feigned.

   As children we used to go on "spying" missions around the neighbour's house, but it was all pretend.

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: s?kr?t?, IPA^(key): /s??k?i?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

First attested in 1678: from Latin s?cr?tus (“[having been] separated”).

Adjective

secrete (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, rare) separated
   • 1678: Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, book 1, chapter 4, pages 307 and 582:

     […] they ?uppo?ing Two other Divine Hypo?ta?es Superiour thereunto, which were perfectly Secrete from Matter.

     […]

     This ?o containeth all things, as not being yet ?ecrete and di?tinct; whereas in the Second they are di?cerned and di?tingui?hed by Rea?on; that is, they are Actually di?tingui?hed in their Ideas; whereas the Fir?t is the Simple and Fecund Power of all things.

Etymology 2

First directly attested in 1728; attested as the past-participial adjective secreted in 1707: from Latin s?cr?tus, perfect passive participle of s?cern? (“I separate”); reinforced by back-formation from secretion; compare secern; cognate with the French sécréter and the Spanish secretar.

Verb

secrete (third-person singular simple present secretes, present participle secreting, simple past and past participle secreted)

1. (physiology, transitive, of organs, glands, etc.) To extract a substance from blood, sap, or similar to produce and emit waste for excretion or for the fulfilling of a physiological function.
   • 1842, William Benjamin Carpenter, Principles of Human Physiology

     Why one set of cells should secrete bile, another urea, and so on, we do not know.

   • 2008, Stephen J. McPhee, Maxine A. Papadakis, et al., Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment, McGraw-Hill Medical, page 1202:

     Many tumors secrete two or more different hormones.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To exude or yield.
   • 1863: Charles Kingsley (author), Frances Elizabeth Kingsley (editor), Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life (first published posthumously in 1877), page 156 (8th edition: 1880)

     If you won’t believe my great new doctrine (which, by the bye, is as old as the Greeks), that souls secrete their bodies, as snails do shells, you will remain in outer darkness.

   • 1887: James Russell Lowell, Democracy and Other Addresses, page 15 (1892 reprint)

     Let me not be misunderstood. I see as clearly as any man possibly can, and rate as highly, the value of wealth, and of hereditary wealth, as the security of refinement, the feeder of all those arts that ennoble and beautify life, and as making a country worth living in. Many an ancestral hall here in England has been a nursery of that culture which has been of example and benefit to all. Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new gold must grow old to be capable of secreting.

Translations

Etymology 3

Alteration of verb sense of secret

Verb

secrete (third-person singular simple present secretes, present participle secreting, simple past and past participle secreted)

1. (transitive) To conceal.
   • 1914: The Pacific Reporter, volume 142, page 450 (West Publishing Company)

     Plaintiffs filed an affidavit for an attachment, alleging that defendant was about to assign, secrete, and dispose of his property with intent to delay and defraud his creditors, and was about to convert his property into money to place it beyond the reach of his creditors.

   • 1997: Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, page 43 (Totem Books, Icon Books; ?ISBN

     Whereas the Renaissance had allowed madness into the light, the classical age saw it as scandal or shame. Families secreted mad uncles and strange cousins in asylums.

Usage notes

• The present participle and past forms secreting and secreted are heteronymous with the corresponding forms of the similar verb secret, and this can create ambiguity when the word is encountered in print.

Translations

References

• “†se?crete, a.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989) (adjective)
• OED (second edition), “secrete, v.” (verb and figurative senses)

Anagrams

• Treeces

Italian

Adjective

secrete

1. feminine plural of secreto

Verb

secrete

1. feminine plural of secreto

Anagrams

• cretese, escrete

Latin

Etymology 1

From the perfect passive participle s?cr?tus (“sundered, secluded, hidden”) +? -?.

Alternative forms

• s?cr?t?

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /se??kre?.te?/, [s?e??k?e?t?e?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /se?kre.te/, [s??k???t??]

Adverb

s?cr?t? (comparative s?cr?tius, superlative s?cr?tissim?)

1. secretly, in secret, privately

Etymology 2

Inflection of perfect passive participle of s?cern? (“separate; part; reject”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /se??kre?.te/, [s?e??k?e?t??]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /se?kre.te/, [s??k???t??]

Participle

s?cr?te

1. vocative masculine singular of s?cr?tus

References

• secrete in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• secrete in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700?^[1], pre-publication website, 2005-2016

Portuguese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /se?.k??.t(?)i/
• Hyphenation: se?cre?te
• Rhymes: -?t(?)i

Verb

secrete

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of secretar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of secretar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of secretar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of secretar

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /se?k?ete/, [se?k?e.t?e]

Verb

secrete

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of secretar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of secretar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of secretar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of secretar.