(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
Private industries and services are owned or controlled by an individual person or a commercial company, rather than by the state or an official organization. (BUSINESS)
Bupa runs ~ hospitals in Britain...
Brazil says its constitution forbids the ~ ownership of energy assets.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
~ly
No other European country had so few ~ly owned businesses...
She was ~ly educated at schools in Ireland and Paris.
ADV: ADV with v
2.
Private individuals are acting only for themselves, and are not representing any group, company, or organization.
...the law’s insistence that ~ citizens are not permitted to have weapons...
The King was on a ~ visit to enable him to pray at the tombs of his ancestors...
ADJ: ADJ n
3.
Your ~ things belong only to you, or may only be used by you.
There are 76 individually furnished bedrooms, all with ~ bathrooms...
ADJ: usu ADJ n
4.
Private places or gatherings may be attended only by a particular group of people, rather than by the general public.
673 ~ golf clubs took part in a recent study...
The door is marked ‘Private’...
? public
ADJ: usu ADJ n
5.
Private meetings, discussions, and other activities involve only a small number of people, and very little information about them is given to other people.
Don’t bug ~ conversations, and don’t buy papers that reprint them.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
~ly
Few senior figures have issued any public statements but ~ly the resignation’s been welcomed...
ADV: usu ADV with cl, also ADV after v
6.
Your ~ life is that part of your life that is concerned with your personal relationships and activities, rather than with your work or business.
I’ve always kept my ~ and professional life separate...
= personal
ADJ: usu ADJ n
7.
Your ~ thoughts or feelings are ones that you do not talk about to other people.
We all felt as if we were intruding on his ~ grief.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
~ly
Privately, she worries about whether she’s really good enough...
ADV: ADV with cl, ADV with v
8.
You can use ~ to describe situations or activities that are understood only by the people involved in them, and not by anyone else.
Chinese waiters stood in a cluster, sharing a ~ joke...
ADJ: ADJ n
9.
If you describe a place as ~, or as somewhere where you can be ~, you mean that it is a quiet place and you can be alone there without being disturbed.
It was the only reasonably ~ place they could find.
ADJ
10.
If you describe someone as a ~ person, you mean that they are very quiet by nature and do not reveal their thoughts and feelings to other people.
Gould was an intensely ~ individual.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
11.
You can use ~ to describe lessons that are not part of ordinary school activity, and which are given by a teacher to an individual pupil or a small group, usually in return for payment.
Martial arts: Private lessons: ?8 per hour.
...Donald Tovey, who took her as his ~ pupil for the piano.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
12.
A ~ is a soldier of the lowest rank in an army or the marines.
N-COUNT; N-TITLE
13.
see also ~ly
14.
If you do something in ~, you do it without other people being present, often because it is something that you want to keep secret.
Some of what we’re talking about might better be discussed in ~.
PHRASE: usu PHR after v