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Glite Dictionary
executive secretary

executive secretary

6 3.9
A person who helps a top manager with office work and private papers
  • noun
  • /ɪɡˈzɛkjʊtɪv ˈsɛkrəˌtɛri/
translation icon : secretario ejecutivo
  • The executive secretary, a nice-looking woman with an efficient, firm manner, announced their arrival into her headset.
  • former executive secretary

Examples

  • Mahendra M. Shah served as executive secretary of the review panel, with Maurice F. Strong as chair.

    Academic text (2000)

  • I'm Ms. Kennedy, Mr. Bond's executive secretary.

    Licence to Kill (1989)

  • My executive secretary, Miss Kennedy, will take care of that.

    Licence to Kill (1989)

  • I'm Mr. Farnsworth's personal and private executive secretary.

    Heaven Can Wait (1978)

  • James Edwards, executive secretary, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Denmark.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Well, if you're going to stay and be my executive secretary, you'd better look the part.

    Licence to Kill (1989)

  • She's an executive secretary at the regional offices of Filagree Drug Company.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Arthur McPhaul, executive secretary of the Civil Rights Congress, was subpoenaed also.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Its first executive secretary, directing the department until 1966, was Madeleine Barot from France.

    Academic text (2018)

  • As the executive secretary, she managed the schedules of top executives and organized important meetings.

Synonyms

secy
vsexecutive secretary
  • Indian
4 9.9

A person who helps with office work and sometimes holds a senior government job

assists high-level managers with confidential and complex administrative duties

How Senior

manager
∞ 1.6
executive secretary
6 3.9
secretary
496 1.3
assistant
833 1.0

Surface Forms

executive secretary singular
executive secretaries plural

Morphology

executive + secretary

The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'executive' (a high-level manager) with 'secretary' (an employee who handles correspondence and records): it denotes a secretary who works for or assists an executive with administrative duties. This noun+noun compositional pattern is common in English and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The term executive secretary comes from older uses of the two words: a secretary was someone who kept a boss's papers and 'secrets', and an executive is a 'leader' who makes big decisions. So an executive secretary is the person who manages the leader's private work and helps with important, often private, tasks.