秘密
Meaning in Englishsecret, secrecy
Animated kanji stroke order
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Word context
What it means
秘密 (himitsu) means 'secret' — something intentionally kept from others or restricted to a limited group; it denotes information, matters, or conditions that are concealed or treated with confidentiality rather than shared publicly.
Main meanings
- 1. Confidential information or material kept from general access.
- 2. A private matter or personal detail not shared with others.
- 3. Specialized or arcane knowledge, such as a hidden technique or trick.
- 4. An unresolved mystery or element not yet revealed.
How to use it
Appears across registers: everyday conversation to describe private matters, formal or legal language to mark confidential information, and literature/media as a plot device; syntactically it functions as a noun and commonly modifies other nouns or pairs with verbs meaning to keep, reveal, or discover, so it fits contexts from casual secrets between friends to institutional confidentiality.
Variants and close terms
- 内緒 (naisho) — private, kept from others
- 秘匿 (hitoku) — concealment, formal/legal term
- 秘蔵 (hizō) — treasured/kept hidden
- 公開 (kōkai) — public disclosure (antonym)
Composition
- 秘 (hi): implies secrecy, hidden or private.
- 密 (mitsu): implies closeness, density, or secrecy in the sense of being tightly held.
Origin
The term entered Japanese vocabulary alongside Sino-Japanese compounds after Chinese characters were adopted (early medieval period); its use expanded from classical and bureaucratic texts into everyday speech and legal contexts, reflecting a long-standing cultural need to mark information as restricted or confidential.
Word class
noun (名詞)