privately
part of speech
adverb (privately)
meaning for a pupil
1) Without other people being there or knowing; in secret or alone. tree →
2) In your own thoughts, not said out loud: «privately, she was scared». tree →
3) Owned or paid for by a person or company, not the government: «a privately owned park». tree →
4) A book that is privately printed is printed in small numbers for friends and is not sold in shops. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life and safety: talk privately to a teacher about a worry; private parts of your body are private. In stories, characters speak privately or think privately. Phrases: «speak privately», «privately owned».
examples
- Can I talk to you privately, Miss? tree →
- She spoke to him privately after class. tree →
- Privately, I thought the film was boring. tree →
- The forest is privately owned, so we can't go in. tree →
- He changed privately in the cubicle. tree →
- Some schools are run privately. tree →
- Mr. Clouston has remarks on the raven as omen-bird in his notes to Mrs. Saxby's Birds of Omen in Shetland (privately printed, 1893). tree →
note
Adverb of «private». Privately is different from a bad secret: if something worries or hurts you, telling a trusted adult privately is right, even if someone said to keep it secret.
In the corpora
- Invitations are given privately or to the whole class, not in front of children who are not invited.
- If a parent's joke-shouting in public bugs you, you can tell them privately.
- A question asked privately, politely and with evidence is far more likely to be welcomed than a public "you're wrong".
- Correcting a teacher privately instead of in front of everyone is kind and is usually welcomed.
- A pet name is a loving nickname from family; asking a parent privately not to use it in public is fair.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «privately» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.