transcription, транскрипция: [ praɪvɪt ]
( privates)
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 private hospitals in Britain...
Brazil says its constitution forbids the private ownership of energy assets.
ADJ : usu ADJ n
• pri‧vate‧ly
No other European country had so few privately owned businesses...
She was privately 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 private citizens are not permitted to have weapons...
The King was on a private visit to enable him to pray at the tombs of his ancestors...
ADJ : ADJ n
3.
Your private things belong only to you, or may only be used by you.
There are 76 individually furnished bedrooms, all with private 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 private 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 private conversations, and don’t buy papers that reprint them.
ADJ : usu ADJ n
• pri‧vate‧ly
Few senior figures have issued any public statements but privately the resignation’s been welcomed...
ADV : usu ADV with cl , also ADV after v
6.
Your private 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 private and professional life separate...
= personal
ADJ : usu ADJ n
7.
Your private thoughts or feelings are ones that you do not talk about to other people.
We all felt as if we were intruding on his private grief.
ADJ : usu ADJ n
• pri‧vate‧ly
Privately, she worries about whether she’s really good enough...
ADV : ADV with cl , ADV with v
8.
You can use private 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 private joke...
ADJ : ADJ n
9.
If you describe a place as private , or as somewhere where you can be private , you mean that it is a quiet place and you can be alone there without being disturbed.
It was the only reasonably private place they could find.
ADJ
10.
If you describe someone as a private 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 private individual.
ADJ : usu ADJ n
11.
You can use private 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 private pupil for the piano.
ADJ : usu ADJ n
12.
A private is a soldier of the lowest rank in an army or the marines.
N-COUNT ; N-TITLE
13.
see also privately
14.
If you do something in private , 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 private.
PHRASE : usu PHR after v