Private - privet

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Both the words private and privet exist in English. They are pronounced differently, and have very different meanings. Nevertheless some less experienced writers of English confuse them. Don't be such a student! (The spell-checker will not notice if you do: this is an error you must correct yourself.)

  • Private is most commonly an adjective, and opposed to 'public'. The general meaning is "individual or personal, rather than communal or shared" (OED); but the reference is sometimes not to a single individual but a limited or closed or in some sense separate subset of society: a family, a commercial organisation or a society, for example.
    • Any member of the wider community may use a public road or a public park: but only the 'individual or personal' owners have the right to drive on a private road, or to enter a private park.
    • Sometimes the implication is that 'private' services are those that have to be paid for, while 'their public' equivalents are "free at the point of use", i.e. the state provides them. The state provides a public health service; the 'individuals' who pay (or have private insurance, as well as the National Insurance that all citizens must have) can also attend private hospitals, and other providers of care. See also Public school, for some insight into the oddities of private education in this sense.
    • It can mean 'not official', as when the former US President Jimmy Carter visited the Middle East in 2008 "in a private capacity".
    • An 'individual' or group may regard information, etc, as private in the sense of 'confidential', 'not for publication'. A private secretary is one appointed to work for an individual inside an organisation, rather than for the organisation generally. In the UK government, a private secretary is a (paid) senior civil servant who advises the politician Minister; a Parliamentary Private Secretary is a(n elected) politician who works closely with a Minister, although unpaid in that capacity.
    • A private soldier (usually simply private) is the lowest rank in the British (and similar armies).
    • Private parts is a slight euphemism for genitals.
For many other variations on the meaning, see (OED), s.v. private, adj.1, adv., and n, particularly under .
      • Privation is the state of suffering because of shortages. It has the same root as the verb 'to deprive', which is distantly related to the root of private, but should never be connected with it. Shipwrecked sailors may undergo severe privations: in a whole ship's crew, they are unlikely to find much privacy.
  • Privet is the name of a bush or tree, in Britain commonly grown for hedges round gardens. The Latin name for its genus is Ligustrum; the common hedge shrub is L. ovalifolium.