SEC'RETARY, noun. [Latin secretus, secret; originally a confident, one entrusted with secrets.]

1. A person employed by a public body, by a company or by an individual, to write orders, letters, dispatches, public or private papers, and the like. Thus ligislative bodies have secretaries, whose business is to record all their laws and resolves. Embassadors have secretaries.

2. An officer whose business is to superintend and manage the affairs of a particular department of government; as the secretary of state, who conducts correspondence of a state with foreign courts: the secretary of the treasury, who manages the department of finance; the secretary of war, of the navy, etc.