Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use secretly in a sentence

40 example sentences · adverb

Secretly means in secret, covertly. Example: “Mary cheated secretly in the test, and never got caught.”

Examples of secretly by meaning

adverbIn secret, covertly.

  • Mary cheated secretly in the test, and never got caught.

More sentences with secretly

  • He acted the angry parent, but was secretly amused.From the entry act
  • Many profess to despise what secretly they hunger after.From the entry profess
  • Born and raised in Salem, he was admittedly an Oregonian through and through, though he secretly hated it.From the entry Oregonian
  • Smugglers operating secretly so as not to excite suspicion.From the entry excite
  • Or would he secretly be taking directions from Salt Lake City?2022 April 10, Jed Woodworth, See How the Church Changed in Remarkable ‘Saints 3’. From the entry Salt Lake City
  • Beyoncé’s surprise album ’broke the Internet’ when she secretly released it last year.2014, Charlotte Alter, “What Does It Mean to 'Break the Internet'?”, in Time. From the entry break the internet
  • Andy, like Blossom, stinted the standard, gave it less, in order to give (secretly) more.2009, Kenneth Goldsmith, I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews. From the entry underspeak
  • The experimenter passed it around the room and secretly counted the amount of candy that people took.2005, W. Keith Campbell, When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN, page 20. From the entry entitled
  • And, secretly, I wonder: how do I get anywhere near that level of tautness?2003 August 23, “A weight on their shoulders”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on…. From the entry bemuscled
  • The corrupted LEO have secretly deprived regular citizens' basical rights in surveilllance system.1998 November 26, Alan Yu, “Who has secretly deprived regular citizens' basical rights”, in alt.law-enforcement (Usenet), retrieved 25 May…. From the entry basical
  • You know how irritating Mama finds him, and yet you write to him secretly.1996, Mona K. Gedney, A Lady of Quality. From the entry sneaksby
  • Some years later I learned that our place was not the most secretly blockaded area.1994, Pu Ning, Red in Tooth and Claw, New York: Grove Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 60. From the entry Hsinchiang
  • 'There might be,' he reported, 'a myllion of gold secretly conveyed aboard.'1992, Peter Earle, The Last Fight of the Revenge, page 65. From the entry myllion
  • Last summer's featured creature was Caspar Weinberger's secret (and secretly recorded) speech.1985, Raymond Barrio, A Political Portfolio, page 82. From the entry superbursting
  • Many of them must have agreed in their hearts, and applauded his courage secretly.1955 November, “Mississippi Loses a Minister”, in Clair M. Cook, editor, Economic Justice […], volume XXIV, number 3, Columbus, Oh.…. From the entry know which side one's bread is buttered on
  • "'E's got th' monkey on 'is back ower this letter job," said the father secretly to me.1922, D. H. Lawrence, “Wintry Peacock,”, in England, My England. From the entry monkey on one's back
  • There were no red eyes, no signs of secretly indulged grief.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 57. From the entry decorum
  • Is someone from Bluesky security secretly a Hananiac?2025 February 12, BurdensomeCountV3, “Did Richard delete his Bluesky account?”, in r/Hanania (Reddit post), archived from the original on…. From the entry Hananiac
  • Altman got wind of their plan he would marshal his network against them, they acted quickly and secretly.2023 December 9, Tripp Mickle, Cade Metz, Mike Isaac, Karen Weise, “Inside OpenAI’s Crisis Over the Future of Artificial Intelligence”, in…. From the entry get wind of
  • Friom a distance, Komal secretly observes Lakshaya, dressed in a fitted maroon sherwani, carefully mount the decorated animal.2023, Radhika Iyengar, Fire on the Ganges, Fourth Estate, page 283. From the entry sherwani
  • Doing the “transphobe is secretly trans” is backwards and damaging.2023 February 11, @luckynein, Tumblr, archived from the original on 02 Aug 2025. From the entry antitransmasculinity
  • Whether or not you believe it (I secretly do), Panic! was no longer the “son” of the “holy emo trinity.”2023 February 10, Amanda Kalayadjian, “A Fever That Was Sweat Out”, in The Bucknellian. From the entry emo trinity
  • Add into this any number of services secretly buying systems without informing IT departments and it is a big spaghetti mess.2022, Victoria Betton, Towards a Digital Ecology: NHS Digital Adoption through the COVID-19 Looking Glass, CRC Press, →ISBN. From the entry shadow IT
  • On the real, are you secretly afraid you're gay?2019 December, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 55. From the entry on the real
  • I remember that he secretly used to cook aloo ki sabzi when my mom made dal or ghiya, which we hated.2016 June 18, “I found my lost father in him...”, in The Times of India. From the entry ghiya
  • Gudinski – while secretly almost certainly harbouring some sense of future opportunity – had always played the same straight bat.2015, Stuart Coupe, Gudinski: The Godfather of Australian Rock. From the entry partydom
  • Random individuals are secretly chosen for covert behavior, thought and perception control via onbeam avenues and other advanced technologies.2011, Mark Leach, Marienbad My Love With Mango Extracts, →ISBN, page 91. From the entry onbeam
  • I secretly ship JohnDave a lot too.2011 January 8, M. Elizabeth Em. (@weareallpuppets), Twitter. From the entry Johndave
  • She secretly wanted to sabotage the typical tall, thin, and gorgeous stereotype of the superficial dance team member.2009, David Luck, Too Fat to Dance. From the entry danceline
  • The last is a nickname she secretly hates.2008, Stephen King, Just after Sunset, Simon and Schuster, published 2009, →ISBN, page 129. From the entry jan
  • I read every evening, sometimes late into the night, with the help of kerosene lamps, often secretly, past my bedtime.2004, Vartan Gregorian, The Road to Home: My Life and Times, page 55. From the entry bedtime
  • Secretly both of them were a little nervous.2002 October, Fannie Flagg, “The Water Tower”, in Standing in the Rainbow (Elmwood Springs; 2), New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, →ISBN…. From the entry double dog dare
  • It's that perfect fairy tale x-fic that everyone secretly loves.2002 April 12, XL [username], “REC: Mary Church”, in alt.tv.x-files.creative (Usenet). From the entry squickage
  • People aren't afraid of secretly being black.1992, The Advocate, numbers 600-606, page xiii. From the entry blackophobic
  • She also reported that Vals are “jealous of Brooke Shields and secretly want to go to New York.”1982 September 15, Moon Zappa, quotee, “They're Clothes Crazy, Fer Sure; Valley Girls aren't just in California”, in The New York Times…. From the entry val
  • Her servant is secretly selling gossip about her to a scandal sheet, and this angle provides some of the semifunny situations.1953 November 25, “Heimlich, Still Und Leise (Secretly, Quietly & Softly) (German)”, in Variety, volume 192, number 12, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry semifunny
  • When terves like JKR say they might have been transed as a youth, they are weaponizing antitransmasculinity, not saying they are secretly trans men.2023 February 11, @luckynein, Tumblr, archived from the original on 02 Aug 2025. From the entry antitransmasculinity
  • Another familiar trope, the slow burn, teases the reader as characters secretly pine for one another . . . for a long time.2018, Francesca DiPiazza, Fandom: Fic Writers, Vidders, Gamers, Artists, and Cosplayers, page 30. From the entry slow burn
  • I know that she never falls asleep before 2 a.m. and her favourite fanfic trope is enemies-to-lovers and she’s secretly a fan of Ariana Grande.2018, Alice Oseman, I Was Born for This, unnumbered page. From the entry enemies-to-lovers

Meaning of secretly

  1. adverb In secret, covertly.

Full definition of secretly

Questions about secretly in a sentence

How do you use secretly in a sentence?
Secretly is used as an adverb. For example: “Mary cheated secretly in the test, and never got caught.”
What is a short sentence with secretly?
“I secretly ship JohnDave a lot too.”
What does secretly mean?
Secretly means in secret, covertly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: secretly (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use secretly in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/secretly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.