Word.ws English Dictionary

secretary general

secretary general is the alternative letter-case form of Secretary General.

Noun capitalized: Secretary General

Secretary General (plural Secretaries General)

  1. The chief administrator of an international body such as NATO or the United Nations.
  2. The secretary of a non-Communist political party, governmental entity, or other NGO in many countries.
    Synonyms:
    First Secretary, General Secretary, SG

Synonyms of secretary general

Forms of secretary general

pluralsecretaries general
pluralSecretaries General
alternative formsecretary general
alternative formsecretary-general

Origin of secretary general

Calque of French secrétaire général, hence the unusual order of adjective following noun (i.e., postpositive).

Questions about secretary general

What does secretary general mean?
Secretary general means the chief administrator of an international body such as NATO or the United Nations.
What is secretary general the alternative letter-case form of?
Secretary general is the alternative letter-case form of Secretary General.
What part of speech is secretary general?
Secretary general is a noun.
What is the plural of secretary general?
The plural of secretary general is secretaries general.

Words near secretary general in the dictionary

  1. secretary
  2. secretary bird
  3. secretary birds
  4. secretary desk
  5. secretary desks
  6. secretary general
  7. secretary hand
  8. secretary hands
  9. secretary of state
  10. secretary problem
  11. secretary problems

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: secretary general (page history and authors); Secretary General (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “secretary general.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/secretary_general. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.