Chapter Privateer to Probabilist of P by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

Privileged
(Priv"i*leged) a. Invested with a privilege; enjoying a peculiar right, advantage, or immunity.

Privileged communication. (Law) (a) A communication which can not be disclosed without the consent of the party making it, — such as those made by a client to his legal adviser, or by persons to their religious or medical advisers. (b) A communication which does not expose the party making it to indictment for libel, — such as those made by persons communicating confidentially with a government, persons consulted confidentially as to the character of servants, etc. — Privileged debts (Law), those to which a preference in payment is given out of the estate of a deceased person, or out of the estate of an insolvent. Wharton. Burrill. — Privileged witnesses (Law) witnesses who are not obliged to testify as to certain things, as lawyers in relation to their dealings with their clients, and officers of state as to state secrets; also, by statute, clergymen and physicans are placed in the same category, so far as concerns information received by them professionally.

Privily
(Priv"i*ly), adv. In a privy manner; privately; secretly. Chaucer. 2 Pet. ii. 1.

Privity
(Priv"i*ty) n.; pl. Privities [From Privy, a.: cf. F. privauté extreme familiarity.]

1. Privacy; secrecy; confidence. Chaucer.

I will unto you, in privity, discover . . . my purpose.

Spenser.

2. Private knowledge; joint knowledge with another of a private concern; cognizance implying consent or concurrence.

All the doors were laid open for his departure, not without the privity of the Prince of Orange.

Swift.

3. A private matter or business; a secret. Chaucer.

4. pl. The genitals; the privates.

5. (Law) A connection, or bond of union, between parties, as to some particular transaction; mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property.

Privy
(Priv"y) a. [F. privé, fr. L. privatus. See Private.]

1. Of or pertaining to some person exclusively; assigned to private uses; not public; private; as, the privy purse. " Privee knights and squires." Chaucer.

2. Secret; clandestine. " A privee thief." Chaucer.

3. Appropriated to retirement; private; not open to the public. " Privy chambers." Ezek. xxi. 14.

4. Admitted to knowledge of a secret transaction; secretly cognizant; privately knowing.

His wife also being privy to it.

Acts v. 2.

Myself am one made privy to the plot.

Shak.

Privy chamber, a private apartment in a royal residence. [Eng.] — Privy council (Eng. Law), the principal council of the sovereign, composed of the cabinet ministers and other persons chosen by the king or queen. Burrill. — Privy councilor, a member of the privy council. — Privy purse, moneys set apart for the personal use of the monarch; also, the title of the person having charge of these moneys. [Eng.] Macaulay. — Privy sealor signet, the seal which the king uses in grants, etc., which are to pass the great seal, or which he uses in matters of subordinate consequence which do not require the great seal; also, elliptically, the principal secretary of state, or person intrusted with the privy seal. [Eng.] — Privy verdict, a verdict given privily to the judge out of court; — now disused. Burrill.