privy

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: priv=y

CIDE DICTIONARY

privy, a. [F. privé, fr. L. privatus. See Private.].

•  Of or pertaining to some person exclusively; assigned to private uses; not public; private; as, the privy purse.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]
•  Secret; clandestine.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]
•  Appropriated to retirement; private; not open to the public.  Ezek. xxi. 14.  [1913 Webster]
•  Admitted to knowledge of a secret transaction; secretly cognizant; privately knowing.  [1913 Webster]

  "His wife also being privy to it."  [1913 Webster]

  "Myself am one made privy to the plot."  [1913 Webster]

Privy chamber, a private apartment in a royal residence. [Eng.] -- Privy council (Eng. Law), the principal council of the sovereign, composed of the cabinet ministers and other persons chosen by the king or queen. Burrill. -- Privy councilor, a member of the privy council. -- Privy purse, moneys set apart for the personal use of the monarch; also, the title of the person having charge of these moneys. [Eng.] Macaulay. -- Privy seal or Privy signet, the seal which the king uses in grants, etc., which are to pass the great seal, or which he uses in matters of subordinate consequence which do not require the great seal; also, elliptically, the principal secretary of state, or person intrusted with the privy seal. [Eng.] -- Privy verdict, a verdict given privily to the judge out of court; -- now disused. Burrill.

privy, n. 

•  A partaker; a person having an interest in any action or thing; one who has an interest in an estate created by another; a person having an interest derived from a contract or conveyance to which he is not himself a party. The term, in its proper sense, is distinguished from party.  Burrill. Wharton.  [1913 Webster]
•  A necessary house or place for performing excretory functions in private; an outhouse; a backhouse.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

privy, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 (foll. by to) sharing in the secret of (a person's plans etc.).
2 archaic hidden, secret.
--n. (pl. -ies)
1 US or archaic a lavatory.
2 Law a person having a part or interest in any action, matter, or thing.

Idiom

Privy Council 1 (in the UK) a body of advisers appointed by the sovereign (now chiefly on an honorary basis and including present and former government ministers etc.).
2 usu. hist. a sovereign's or governor-general's private counsellors. privy counsellor (or councillor) a private adviser, esp. a member of a Privy Council.
privy purse Brit.
1 an allowance from the public revenue for the monarch's private expenses.
2 the keeper of this. privy seal (in the UK) a seal formerly affixed to documents that are afterwards to pass the Great Seal or that do not require it.

Derivative

privily adv.

Etymology

ME f. OF priv{eacute} f. L privatus PRIVATE

THESAURUS

privy

WC, alive to, anonymous, appreciative of, apprised of, awake to, aware of, back-door, backhouse, backstairs, basement, bathroom, behind the curtain, behind the scenes, bog, buried, can, clandestine, closet, cognizant of, comfort station, concealed, conscious of, convenience, covert, crapper, earth closet, feline, furtive, head, hep to, hidden, hidlings, hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, in the know, in the secret, incognito, informed of, inmost, innermost, interior, intimate, inward, isolated, jakes, john, johnny, johnny house, latrine, lavatory, let into, loo, mindful of, necessary, no stranger to, obscured, office, on to, outhouse, personal, powder room, private, privileged, privy to, quiet, rest room, retired, secluded, secret, seized of, sensible of, sensible to, sequestered, shifty, shrouded, skulking, slinking, slinky, sly, sneaking, sneaky, stealthy, streetwise, surreptitious, toilet, toilet room, undeceived, under-the-counter, under-the-table, undercover, underground, underhand, underhanded, unobtrusive, urinal, washroom, water closet, wise to, withdrawn

ROGET THESAURUS

privy

Uncleanness

N uncleanness, impurity, immundity, immundicity, impurity, defilement, contamination, defoedation, soilure, soiliness, abomination, leaven, taint, tainture, fetor, decay, putrescence, putrefaction, corruption, mold, must, mildew, dry rot, mucor, rubigo, slovenry, slovenliness, squalor, dowdy, drab, slut, malkin, slattern, sloven, slammerkin, slammock, slummock, scrub, draggle-tail, mudlark, dust-man, sweep, beast, dirt, filth, soil, slop, dust, cobweb, flue, smoke, soot, smudge, smut, grit, grime, raff, sossle, sozzle, sordes, dregs, grounds, lees, argol, sediment, settlement heeltap, dross, drossiness, mother, precipitate, scoriae, ashes, cinders, recrement, slag, scum, froth, hogwash, ditchwater, dishwater, bilgewater, rinsings, cheeseparings, sweepings, offscourings, outscourings, off scum, caput mortuum, residuum, sprue, fecula, clinker, draff, scurf, scurfiness, exuviae, morphea, fur, furfur, dandruff, tartar, riffraff, vermin, louse, flea, bug, chinch, mud, mire, quagmire, alluvium, silt, sludge, slime, slush, slosh, sposh, spawn, offal, gurry, lientery, garbage, carrion, excreta, slough, peccant humor, pus, matter, suppuration, lienteria, faeces, feces, excrement, ordure, dung, crap, shit, sewage, sewerage, muck, coprolite, guano, manure, compost, dunghill, colluvies, mixen, midden, bog, laystall, sink, privy, jakes, toilet, john, head, cess, cesspool, sump, sough, cloaca, latrines, drain, sewer, common sewer, Cloacina, dust hole, sty, pigsty, lair, den, Augean stable, sink of corruption, slum, rookery, dirty, filthy, grimy, unclean, impure, soiled, not to be handled with kid gloves, dusty, snuffy, smutty, sooty, smoky, thick, turbid, dreggy, slimy, mussy, slovenly, untidy, messy, uncleanly, unkempt, sluttish, dowdy, draggle-tailed, uncombed, unscoured, unswept, unwiped, unwashed, unstrained, unpurified, squalid, lutose, slammocky, slummocky, sozzly, nasty, coarse, foul, offensive, abominable, beastly, reeky, reechy, fetid, decayed, moldy, musty, mildewed, rusty, moth-eaten, mucid, rancid, weak, bad, gone bad, etercoral, lentiginous, touched, fusty, effete, reasty, rotten, corrupt, tainted, high, flyblown, maggoty, putrid, putrefactive, putrescent, putrefied, saprogenic, saprogenous, purulent, carious, peccant, fecal, feculent, stercoraceous, excrementitious, scurfy, scurvy, impetiginous, gory, bloody, rotting, rotten as a pear, rotten as cheese, crapulous, gross, fimetarious, fimicolous, they that touch pitch will be defiled.

Concealment

N concealment, hiding, occultation, mystification, seal of secrecy, screen, disguise, masquerade, masked battery, hiding place, cryptography, steganography, freemasonry, stealth, stealthiness, sneakiness, obreption, slyness, latitancy, latitation, seclusion, privacy, secrecy, secretness, incognita, reticence, reserve, mental reserve, reservation, arriere pensee, suppression, evasion, white lie, misprision, silence, suppression of truth, underhand dealing, closeness, secretiveness, mystery, latency, snake in the grass, secret, stowaway, concealed, hidden, secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark, cryptic, cryptical, private, privy, in petto, auricular, clandestine, close, inviolate, tortuous, behind a screen, undercover, under an eclipse, in ambush, in hiding, in disguise, in a cloud, in a fog, in a mist, in a haze, in a dark corner, in the shade, in the dark, clouded, wrapped in clouds, wrapt in clouds, invisible, buried, underground, perdu, secluded, undisclosed &c, untold, covert, untraceable, mysterious, irrevealable, inviolable, confidential, esoteric, not to be spoken of, unmentionable, obreptitious, furtive, stealthy, feline, skulking, surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner, sly, secretive, evasive, reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up, close, close as wax, taciturn, secretly, in secret, in private, in one's sleeve, in holes and corners, in the dark, januis clausis, with closed doors, a huis clos, hugger mugger, a la derobee, under the cloak of, under the rose, under the table, sub rosa, en tapinois, in the background, aside, on the sly, with bated breath, sotto voce, in a whisper, without beat of drum, a la sourdine, behind the veil, beyond mortal ken, beyond the grave, beyond the veil, hid from mortal vision, into the eternal secret, into the realms supersensible, into the supreme mystery, in confidence, in strict confidence, in strictest confidence, confidentially, between ourselves, between you and me, between you and me and the bedpost, entre nous, inter nos, under the seal of secrecy, a couvert, underhand, by stealth, like a thief in the night, stealthily, behind the scenes, behind the curtain, behind one's back, behind a screen, incognito, in camera, it must go no further, it will go no further, don't tell a soul, tell it not in Gath, nobody the wiser, alitur vitium vivitque tegendo, let it be tenable in your silence still, background information, deep background information, deep background, background session, backgrounder, not for attribution.