There is a popular claim that has been circulating for a long time claiming that the word secretary comes from Latin meaning “keeper of secrets.” This idea stems from a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Latin word secretum, which is the source of our English word secret but usually has a slightly different meaning in Latin.
Debunking the false etymology
This idea that the word secretary comes from Latin meaning “secret-keeper” is everywhere. It is often repeated in articles about the secretarial profession and what it entails. For instance, an article by Kate Hilpern published in The Guardian in November 2003 claims:
“It is increasingly fitting that the word “secretary” originates from the Latin “secretarius” – meaning secret. Among the key attributes for today’s PA is the ability to maintain confidentiality at all costs.”
Even the Online Etymology Dictionary, which is normally accurate, gets this one wrong, claiming that the word secretary literally means “person entrusted with secrets.”
The word secretary does indeed come from the Latin word secretarius, but secretarius does not mean “secret” or even “keeper of secrets”; it actually means “a personal attendant, advisor, or clerk.” Secretarius in turn derives from the word secretum, which is the perfect passive participle of the third-conjugation verb secerno, meaning “to set apart.”
Secretum therefore literally means “a thing that has been set apart.” Although the Latin word secretum is the root of our modern English word secret, as it is used in Latin, it actually most often means something more like “private” or “personal.” A secretarius, then, is not a “keeper of secrets,” but rather a personal attendant, advisor, or clerk.
ABOVE: Ancient Roman marble sculpture of a man holding a stylus and writing tablet. The Latin word secretarius does not mean “keeper of secrets,” but rather “personal attendant, advisor, or clerk.”
Why the “Vatican Secret Archive” isn’t really “secret” either
A secretary is not really a keeper of secrets in the same way that the so-called “Vatican Secret Archive” isn’t really “secret.” As I discuss in this article I wrote in January 2020, the Vatican basically lets anyone in the Secret Archive who can prove their qualifications and that they have a good reason to be there. Hundreds of scholars and journalists are allowed to access the Vatican Secret Archive each year and the Vatican is even working to digitize its collections to make them accessible online to anyone with an internet connection.
The name “Vatican Secret Archive” is a mistranslation of the archive’s historical name in Latin, which is “Archivum Secretum Vaticanum.” The archive was originally given this name because it was originally an archive for the pope’s personal use. A more accurate translation would be “Vatican Private Archive.”
Today, though, the archive is no longer officially called the “Archivum Secretum Vaticanum” because Pope Francis officially renamed it the “Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum” or “Vatican Apostolic Archive” in October 2019, precisely because the old name was so confusing.
ABOVE: Photograph of the interior of the Vatican Apostolic Archive, which isn’t really “secret”—just like a secretary is not really a “keeper of secrets”
Should a secretary be a “keeper of secrets”?
The word secretary definitely doesn’t mean “keeper of secrets,” but whether a secretary should keep things secret is a somewhat more complicated matter. There are definitely some things that a secretary should keep secret. For instance, it would be wrong for a secretary to tell all the company’s secrets to the company’s nearest competitor or give secret information to someone so they can engage in insider trading.
On the other hand, though, there are things that a secretary shouldn’t keep secret. To give a rather over-the-top example, if a secretary’s employer is secretly an evil mastermind plotting to take over the world, that’s a secret that the secretary probably shouldn’t keep at all costs.
In a slightly more down-to-earth example, if the secretary’s employer is cruel and abusive or engages in sexual harassment, those are secrets that the secretary probably shouldn’t keep either, because keeping those secrets will only cause harm to others who might come along.
In other words, there are some times when a secretary probably shouldn’t keep sensitive information about their employer secret.
So, I have to ask … when will your first book be coming out and do you have a topic or subject in mind yet?
Cogent writing is rare, if you weren’t aware of it, and you have developed considerable skill in that. Getting your words on paper is important because paper is the most successful information storage medium of all time. (The jury is still out on electronic communications. If you look at the troubles trying to decipher written documents which have myriad copies in existence, all somewhat different from each other, imagine the same task with electronic documents that are redacted by one and all and passed on to millions. Egad!)
In the 1935 unabridged Webster’s new international dictionary the first definition is, “ one I trusted with secrets
The second definition
A confidential clerk,
Page 2262.