Part 546

2. Sequestered from company or observation; appropriated to an individual; secret; secluded; lonely; solitary; as, a private room or apartment; private prayer.

Reason . . . then retires Into her private cell when nature rests.

Milton.

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3. Not invested with, or engaged in, public office or employment; as, a private citizen; private life. Shak.

A private person may arrest a felon.

Blackstone.

4. Not publicly known; not open; secret; as, a private negotiation; a private understanding.

5. Having secret or private knowledge; privy. [Obs.]

Private act or statute, a statute exclusively for the settlement of private and personal interests, of which courts do not take judicial notice; -- opposed to a general law, which operates on the whole community. -- Private nuisance or wrong. See Nuisance. -- Private soldier. See Private, n., 5. -- Private way, a right of private passage over another man's ground. Kent.

Pri"vate (pr"vt), n.

1. A secret message; a personal unofficial communication. [Obs.] Shak.

2. Personal interest; particular business.[Obs.]

Nor must I be unmindful of my private.

B. Jonson.

3. Privacy; retirement. [Archaic] "Go off; I discard you; let me enjoy my private." Shak.

4. One not invested with a public office. [Archaic]

What have kings, that privates have not too?

Shak.

5. (Mil.) A common soldier; a soldier below the grade of a noncommissioned officer. Macaulay.

6. pl. The private parts; the genitals.

In private, secretly; not openly or publicly.

Pri`va*teer" (pr`v*tr"), n. [From Private.] 1. An armed private vessel which bears the commission of the sovereign power to cruise against the enemy. See Letters of marque, under Marque.

2. The commander of a privateer.

Kidd soon threw off the character of a privateer and became a pirate.

Macaulay.

Pri`va*teer", v. i. [imp. & p. p. Privateered (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Privateering.] To cruise in a privateer.

Pri`va*teer"ing, n. Cruising in a privateer.