discreetly
adverb
Simple meaning
Acting in a way that respects privacy or secrecy.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihskreetleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪskˈɹitli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adverb
Acting in a discreet manner; acting in a way that respects privacy or secrecy; quietly
Inconspicuously
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Acting in a discreet manner; acting in a way that respects privacy or secrecy; quietly
Used this way, discreetly is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use discreetly
- “I sent for the sergeant of the platoon both men were in and asked him to try to find out discreetly what lay behind this.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Marked by prudence or modesty and wise self-restraint.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: acting in a discreet manner
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.