Secretiveness is the quality of being secretive: the habit of keeping thoughts, plans, or actions hidden. You can talk about a person’s secretiveness, or a company’s, or even a whole culture’s. It names the pattern, not one secret. A little secretiveness can just be privacy — not telling every stranger your salary. A lot of it starts to worry people: Why will they not say? What are they guarding? In psychology or in a novel, writers use the word to point at a character who will not open up. In the news, a government’s secretiveness is usually a complaint, not a compliment. It is a formal, slightly heavy noun. In everyday talk you are more likely to say they are so secretive, or they never tell anyone anything. The -ness ending just turns that habit into a thing you can name and discuss.

神秘、守口如瓶、隱密