Word.ws English Dictionary

in petto

in petto adjective: secret, private.

Adjective

in petto (not comparable)

  1. Secret, private.
    • […] it was not unfrequent for a good bargain to be struck with him by one or more of the public functionaries, the difference between the sum proposed and accepted being settled against the interests of Mynheer Krause, by the party putting him in possession of some government movement which...1837, Capt. Marryat, “Snarleyyow; or, the Dog Fiend”, in The Metropolitan magazine, volume 18, page 18
    • […] in its nine members, stand prominently personified indolence and ignorance consummate, solemn pedantry and petulance in petto, upstart self-conceit and high-born arrogance all-blustering, self-sufficiency all smirking, and solid acres in all their stolidity, the remnant of vigour on crutches...1838, “War in Disguise”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, volume 44, number 278, page 718
  2. Designated as a cardinal but not yet announced.
    • In future you will have the right to dress in red — indeed, you are already cardinal in petto, and you will be proclaimed at the next conclave.1845, Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell, “Metternich”, in The Living Age
    Synonyms:
    in pectore

Adverb

in petto (not comparable)

  1. Privately, in secret.
    • And yet, thou brave Teufelsdröckh, who could tell what lurked in thee? […] The secrets of man’s Life were laid open to thee; thou sawest into the mystery of the Universe, farther than another; thou hadst in petto thy remarkable Volume on Clothes.1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Reminiscences”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 10
    • Ministers and their Majority had a rejoinder in petto, as we have explained above; but it was one which they could not for shame avow, though they voted on the strength of it.1834 June 7, “News of the Week”, in The Spectator, number 310

in petto meaning in Tamil

in petto in Tamil

கமுக்கமாக

Examples of in petto in a sentence

  • In the dining-hall hang portraits of my forefathers—in petto, your forefathers-in-law—by many masters.1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published...
  • The City of the Sun was a model in petto for the whole earth.1979, Frank Edward Manuel, Fritzie Prigohzy Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World, →ISBN, page 271:

Synonyms of in petto

Origin of in petto

Borrowed from Italian in petto (“in the chest”).

Words that rhyme with in petto

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about in petto

What does in petto mean?
In petto means secret, private.
What is in petto in Tamil?
In petto in Tamil is கமுக்கமாக. See In petto meaning in Tamil.
How do you use in petto in a sentence?
In the dining-hall hang portraits of my forefathers—in petto, your forefathers-in-law—by many masters.
What part of speech is in petto?
In petto can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near in petto in the dictionary

  1. in peace
  2. in perpetuity
  3. in person
  4. in personam
  5. in perspective
  6. in petto
  7. in phase
  8. in piety
  9. in pig
  10. in place
  11. in place of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in petto (page history and authors); in petto (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “in petto.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_petto. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.