secret

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secret secret service a government department concerned with espionage; in the US (with capital initials), a branch of the Treasury Department dealing with counterfeiting and providing protection for the President. The term is recorded from the mid 18th century, in a reference in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1737 to ‘the prodigious increase of secret Service money in the late Reign’.

See also take the secret to the grave, three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

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