secretion

Etymology

It is borrowed from French sécrétion,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} or directly borrowed from Latin sēcrētiō (“a dividing, separation”),^[7][8][9] a noun of action from sēcrētus, the past participle of sēcernō (“to separate, set apart”).^[3][5][6][4] The American Heritage Dictionary notes that the French word had meant "separation" in Old French.^[5] The verb secrete, to produce by secretion, is a back-formation from the noun (1707);^[3][2] secret and secern go back to the same Latin verb.^[3][5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In physiology, the action of a gland or similar organ in drawing certain substances from the blood or sap and elaborating them: 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English as a term of physiology, for the process.^[2][3] From 1732 it also named the product, the substance secreted; a figurative use is recorded slightly earlier, in 1727.^[2][3] Late in the 17th century writers also used it in the Latin sense "separation", and in philosophy for the giving off of particles, both now obsolete.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave the process first and "the fluid secreted" second.^[10] It has also had a technical sense in geology since 1882.^[2]

Timeline

• 1646 – the action of a gland in producing a substance.^[2][4]
• 1678 – in philosophy, the giving off of particles (obsolete).^[2]
• 1696 – separation (obsolete).^[2]
• 1727 – figurative use.^[2]
• 1732 – the substance produced by a gland or cell.^[2][3]
• 1882 – a technical sense in geology.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A substance released by a cell or gland, such as saliva or a hormone.^[11][4][2]
2. The process by which a cell, gland or organ produces and releases such a substance.^[11][4][7]

Word family

• secretionary
• hypersecretion
• hyposecretion
• neurosecretion
• nonsecretion
• oversecretion
• supersecretion

Related words

• secrete
• secret
• secern

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins