secret agent

Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to secret agent: James Bond

secret agent

(Military) a person employed in espionage

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

secret agent - a person secretly employed in espionage for a government

intelligence agent, intelligence officer, operative

agent - a representative who acts on behalf of other persons or organizations

agent-in-place - an operative serving as a penetration into an intelligence target

agent provocateur, provocateur - a secret agent who incites suspected persons to commit illegal acts

bridge agent - an operative who acts as a courier or go-between from a case officer to a secret agent in a hostile area

case officer - an operative who also serves as an official staffer of an intelligence service

codetalker, windtalker - a secret agent who was one of the Navajos who devised and used a code based on their native language; the code was unbroken by the Japanese during World War II

foot - a member of a surveillance team who works on foot or rides as a passenger

NOC - an undercover agent who is given no official cover

spy, undercover agent - (military) a secret agent hired by a state to obtain information about its enemies or by a business to obtain industrial secrets from competitors

walk-in - an operative who initiates his own defection (usually to a hostile country) for political asylum

secret agent

noun spy, undercover agent, spook (U.S. & Canad. informal), nark (Brit., Austral., & N.Z. slang), cloak-and-dagger man He was blacklisted as a secret agent.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

مُخْبِر، وَكيل سِرّي

-kašpión

hemmelig agent

Agent Geheimdiplomat

agent secret

titkos ügynök

leyniòjónustumaîur

agente agente segreto

secret agent

n → Geheimagent(in) m(f)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

secret agent

n → agente m segreto

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

secret

(ˈsiːkrit) adjective

hidden from, unknown to, or not told to, other people. a secret agreement; He kept his illness secret from everybody.

noun

1. something which is, or must be kept, secret. The date of their marriage is a secret; industrial secrets.

2. a hidden explanation. I wish I knew the secret of her success.

ˈsecrecy noun

the state of being or the act of keeping secret.

ˈsecretive (-tiv) adjective

inclined to conceal one's activities, thoughts etc. secretive behaviour.

ˈsecretively adverb

ˈsecretiveness noun

ˈsecretly adverb

in such a way that others do not know, see etc. He secretly copied the numbers down in his notebook.

secret agent

a spy.

secret police

a police force whose activities are kept secret and which is concerned mostly with political crimes.

in secret

secretly. This must all be done in secret.

keep a secret

not to tell (something secret) to anyone else. You can't trust her to keep a secret.

References in classic literature ?

I simply know that when a man is practically the secret agent of his government, and is probably carrying despatches of an important nature, that an accident such as he has met with, in a country which is greatly interested in the contents of those despatches, is a somewhat serious thing."

View in context

This was then the famous and trusty secret agent, so secret that he was never designated otherwise but by the symbol [delta] in the late Baron Stott-Wartenheim's official, semi-official, and confidential correspondence; the celebrated agent [delta], whose warnings had the power to change the schemes and the dates of royal, imperial, grand ducal journeys, and sometimes caused them to be put off altogether!

View in context

During many years following his release Defoe issued an enormous number of pamphlets and acted continuously as a secret agent and spy of the government.

View in context

The Black Hundreds were a development out of the secret agents of the capitalists, and their use arose in the labor struggles of the nineteenth century.

View in context

Gernois apparently had no visitors, nor did he on his occasional visits to the town hold communication with any who might even by the wildest flight of imagination be construed into secret agents of a foreign power.

View in context

To one of several international spies and secret agents, whose names are tolerably familiar to me.

The other secret agents whom I have named live in the extreme West End.

View in context

Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, Asheville Symphony, Orion Weiss & DJ Marley Carroll

Mozartistic

Their team is led by Dinnanath Chauhan (Rituraj Singh) who plays the role of a dismissed secret agent (Agent Himalaya).

Actor Rituraj Singh models his secret agent role in Trideviyaan on a close family member

Tonight sees the start of the BBC's big new period drama, The Secret Agent.

Q&A; 60 SECONDS WITH STAR OF NEW DRAMA SECRET AGENT

Vicky, who will feature this week in BBC drama The Secret Agent, has called for widespread change in the trend which has drawn strong criticism from the likes of Martin Compston, James McAvoy, David Morrissey and Julie Walters.

I want to help working class get in on act; THE BIG INTERVIEWActress Vicky McClure on new series The Secret Agent and how the profession must encourage talented young actors who can't afford to go to drama school

She is now set to appear in her first period drama, a BBC adaptation of Joseph Conrad's literary classic The Secret Agent, in which she plays the wife of a Soho sex shop owner and secret agent.