Definition of "secret society" [secret society]

• An organization, such as a lodge, that requires its members to conceal certain activities, such as its rites of initiation, from outsiders. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It also served as the headquarters for the mysterious seventeenth-century secret society called the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, which, it has been proposed, was a front for the Priory of Sion."
• "In 1876, a handful of frustrated fellahin officers had formed a secret society under the robust title Strong Egypt."
• "Suspected Of: Harassing Destiny Darity, setting fire to a dummy version of her, and running a secret society within GTT known only as the Brother of Erebus."