SECRET SOCIETY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does secret society mean? 

• SECRET SOCIETY (noun)
  The noun SECRET SOCIETY has 1 sense:

1. a society that conceals its activities from nonmembers

  Familiarity information: SECRET SOCIETY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SECRET SOCIETY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A society that conceals its activities from nonmembers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("secret society" is a kind of...):

association (a formal organization of people or groups of people)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "secret society"):

Freemasonry; Masonry (Freemasons collectively)

National Volunteers Association; Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (an all-male organization begun in 1925 to foster nationalism in India's Hindus)

Instance hyponyms:

KKK; Klan; Ku Klux Klan (a secret society of white Southerners in the United States; was formed in the 19th century to resist the emancipation of slaves; used terrorist tactics to suppress Black people)

 Context examples 

This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I say that I started my pilgrimage at Chicago, graduated in an Irish secret society at Buffalo, gave serious trouble to the constabulary at Skibbareen, and so eventually caught the eye of a subordinate agent of Von Bork, who recommended me as a likely man, you will realise that the matter was complex.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)