secretary

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
secretary/ˈsekrətri/

▶noun (pl. secretaries)

• 1 a person employed to assist with correspondence, keep records, etc.

• 2 an official of a society or other organization who conducts its correspondence and keeps its records.

• 3 the principal assistant of a UK government minister or ambassador.

– derivatives
secretarial adjective,
secretaryship noun.

– origin ME (orig. in the sense ‘person entrusted with a secret’): from late L. secretarius ‘confidential officer’, from L. secretum ‘a secret’, neut. of secretus (see secret).