covert vs private

covert

adj
  • Secret, surreptitious, concealed. 

  • Under coverture. 

noun
  • A covering. 

  • A disguise. 

  • A feather that covers the bases of flight feathers. 

  • Area of thick undergrowth where animals hide. 

  • A hiding place. 

private

adj
  • Secretive; reserved. 

  • Not publicly known; not open; secret. 

  • Not shared with another patient. 

  • Not accessible by the public. 

  • Belonging to, concerning, or accessible only to an individual person or a specific group. 

  • Protected from view or disturbance by others; secluded. 

  • Accessible only to the class itself or instances of it, and not to other classes or even subclasses. 

  • Not traded by the public. 

  • Not in governmental office or employment. 

verb
  • To make something hidden from the public (without deleting it permanently). 

noun
  • A private lesson. 

  • The genitals. 

  • A soldier of the lowest rank in the army. 

  • A doctor working in privately rather than publicly funded health care. 

How often have the words covert and private occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )