Word Direct Answers

What does "private" mean?

Private: Sequestered from company or observation; appropriated to an individual; secret; secluded; lonely; solitary; as, a private room or apartment; private prayer. Reason . . . then retires Into her private cell when nature rests. Milton.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Not invested with, or engaged in, public office or employment; as, a private citizen; private life. Shak. A private person may arrest a felon. Blackstone.
  2. 3.Not publicly known; not open; secret; as, a private negotiation; a private understanding.
  3. 4.Having secret or private knowledge; privy. [Obs.] Private act or statute, a statute exclusively for the settlement of private and personal interests, of which courts do not take judicial notice; -- opposed to a general law, which operates on the whole community. -- Private nuisance or wrong. See Nuisance. -- Private soldier. See Private, n., 5. -- Private way, a right of private passage over another man's ground. Kent.
  4. 5.A secret message; a personal unofficial communication. [Obs.] Shak.
  5. 6.Personal interest; particular business.[Obs.] Nor must I be unmindful of my private. B. Jonson.
  6. 7.Privacy; retirement. [Archaic] "Go off; I discard you; let me enjoy my private." Shak.
  7. 8.One not invested with a public office. [Archaic] What have kings, that privates have not too Shak.
  8. 9.(Mil.) A common soldier; a soldier below the grade of a noncommissioned officer. Macaulay.
  9. 10.pl. The private parts; the genitals. In private, secretly; not openly or publicly.

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