| Library / English Dictionary |
PRIVATELY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Kept private or confined to those intimately concerned
Example:
he was questioned in private
Synonyms:
in camera; in private; privately
Classified under:
Antonym:
publicly (in a manner accessible to or observable by the public; openly)
Pertainym:
private (confined to particular persons or groups or providing privacy)
Sense 2
Meaning:
By a private person or interest
Example:
a privately financed campaign
Classified under:
Antonym:
publicly (by the public or the people generally)
Context examples:
An NIH-wide database of information about federally and privately funded clinical trials regarding serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions.
(Clinical Trials Database, NCI Thesaurus)
One time an Indian gives them a letter. I talk with him privately. He says it is a man with one eye who gives him the letter, a man who travels fast down the Yukon. That is all.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
And at the dinner, where, with their womankind, were half a dozen of those that sat in high places, and where Martin found himself quite the lion, Judge Blount, warmly seconded by Judge Hanwell, urged privately that Martin should permit his name to be put up for the Styx—the ultra-select club to which belonged, not the mere men of wealth, but the men of attainment.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
A publicly or privately owned institution which is primarily established and licensed for the purpose of providing elective surgical treatment of outpatients whose recovery, under normal and routine circumstances, will not require inpatient care.
(Ambulatory Surgical Facility, NCI Thesaurus)
Neither had read it, but they knew it was a love story, and each privately wondered if it was half as interesting as their own.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
When Robert first sought her acquaintance, and privately visited her in Bartlett's Buildings, it was only with the view imputed to him by his brother.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
But I was afterward given privately to understand, that his imperial majesty, never imagining I had the least notice of his designs, believed I was only gone to Blefuscu in performance of my promise, according to the license he had given me, which was well known at our court, and would return in a few days, when the ceremony was ended.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan; and even if he could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose her so lost to everything?
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
"Isn't 'thou' a little sentimental?" asked Jo, privately thinking it a lovely monosyllable.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
