hidden, ppl. a.
(ˈhɪd(ə)n)
[See hide v.]
1. a. Concealed, secret, occult, etc.: see hide v.
| a 1547 Surrey ‘Good Ladies, ye that’ etc. in Tottel Misc. (Arb.) 19 That vnneath may I finde Some hidden place. 1582 N. T. (Rhem.) 1 Cor. iv. 5 Who..wil lighten the hidden things of darkenes. 1625–6 Purchas Pilgrims II. 1139 We entered into a very fair nook, and in the hidnest corner of it. 1712 W. Rogers Voy. 179 Discovering part of the hidden Treasure. 1817 Coleridge Sibyll. Leaves Poems (1862) 87 A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 267 Hidden meanings or remote allusions. |
b. (the) hidden hand, secret or occult influence, esp. of a malignant character.
| 1870 T. Taylor (title) The hidden hand. 1879 Scribner's Monthly July 326/2 Mr. Chaufrau played..the negro Wool in a dramatization of Mrs. Southworth's ‘Hidden Hand’. 1932 Ann. Reg. 1931 ii. 21 One Labour member attributed the appointment to the influence of a ‘hidden hand’ which was forcing the Labour Party to act against its principles. 1969 Daily Tel. 8 Mar. 20/3 Government action was being urgently considered against the ‘hidden hand type of pressure’ in public relations. |
c. Gram. hidden quantity (see quot. 1898).
| 1898 G. M. Lane Latin Gram. §2459 A vowel which stands before two consonants, or a double consonant, belonging to the same word, so that its natural quantity cannot be determined from the scansion of the word, is said to possess Hidden Quantity. 1965 W. S. Allen Vox Latina 65 A long vowel in such a position is sometimes said to have ‘hidden quantity’. |
d. hidden reserve: (a) in Econ. (see quot. 1965); (b) in general or transf. use, something kept in reserve in a concealed form.
| 1930 Economist 30 Aug. 408/1 Many of the assets in the balance sheet contain substantial hidden reserves. 1935 Discovery Oct. 290/2 It was not until the ‘hidden reserve’ of radioactivity was discovered that it was possible for the prolonged youth of the Earth to be explained. 1965 J. L. Hanson Dict. Econ. 213/1 If the assets of a firm have been deliberately undervalued, perhaps because the value of these assets has increased, the difference between their value as shown in the firm's balance sheet and their real value provides the firm with a ‘hidden reserve’, of which most shareholders will be unaware. |
e. hidden persuaders, a term used, orig. by the Amer. writer Vance Packard (b. 1914), to describe those involved in the organization and practice of advertising; hence hidden persuasion.
| 1957 V. Packard (title) The hidden persuaders. 1959 Daily Mail 2 Apr. 1/4 This is the diet with the hidden persuader and the built-in will-power. 1960 Guardian 28 Dec. 8/4 The hidden persuasions. 1962 Sunday Express 30 Dec. 17/1 At sales time the hidden persuasion works harder—‘15½ guineas slashed to {pstlg}5’. |
2. Mus. Applied to the consecutive fifths or octaves suggested between two parts when they move in similar motion to the interval of a fifth or octave.
| 1869 Ouseley Counterp. ii. 8 These imaginary octaves or fifths are called ‘hidden consecutives’. 1889 E. Prout Harmony iv. §102 If two parts go by similar motion to octaves or perfect fifths, such progressions are called ‘hidden’ octaves or fifths... These octaves and fifths, being passed over, instead of sounded, are said to be hidden. |
3. Comb., as hidden-veined, hidden-working adjs.
| 1870 Bentley Bot. 144 In succulent plants, the leaves are termed hidden-veined. |
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▸ hidden agenda n. a concealed or unexpressed intent behind the ostensible purpose of an action, statement, etc.; an ulterior aim or motive (cf. agenda n.); (also, occas.) = hidden curriculum n. at Additions (see quot. 1971).
| 1955 Jrnl. Business 28 13/1 Most groups, in other words, have ‘*hidden agendas’. These are the inter-personal feeling, the individual strivings for power or for approval, which exist but are not expressed. 1971 Psychol. Abstr. Feb. 317/2 Recent studies have shown that the ‘hidden agenda’ of schooling educates students' attitudes, values, and perceptions, and that personal/psychological education is taking place. 1987 M. Atwood Bluebeard's Egg 40 Sex was the hidden agenda at these discussions. 2001 N.Y. Times 13 May i. 20/4 There is no deviousness or hidden agenda... What it is, is what it is. |
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▸ hidden curriculum n. Educ. those aspects of a child's education (e.g. speech patterns, codes of behaviour, social attitudes, etc.) which are not part of the formal school curriculum, but are instead acquired as part of his or her experience within the social contexts of school and home.
| [1958W. C. Kvaraceus in P. M. Halverson Frontiers of Secondary Educ. III. 19/1 This subliminal curriculum, like the hidden but major portion of the iceberg, is in a sense a natural extension of the visible and formal curriculum of the school.] 1964W. C. Kvaraceus in Negro Self-concept iii. 17 But now let us look into the ‘*hidden curriculum’ of the school. 1964F. L. Strodtbeck in M. D. Fantini & G. Weinstein Disadvantaged (1968) ii. 106 The hidden curriculum of the middle class home. 1977 Times Educ. Suppl. 21 Oct. 35/1 We also need to consider the ‘hidden curriculum’..which includes such important learning as understanding alternative orientations to the ‘official’ knowledge of the school, how to satisfy the teacher's requirements, how to respond to the knowledge or normative content in ways that are acceptable to one's peers as well as to one's teachers. 1999 T. May Victorian Schoolroom 27 (caption) Although the curriculum for boys and girls was largely the same, there were many ways in which the ‘hidden curriculum’ discriminated against girls, as this table shows. |
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▸ hidden economy n. (a) gen. an economy or saving that is not readily apparent (rare); (b) Polit. and Econ. (now the usual sense), the economic sector consisting of transactions that are (illegally) not declared for tax purposes, and which are therefore not taken into account in official statistics; = underground economy at underground adj. 4e.
| 1930 Times 10 Mar. 14/6 An increase of {pstlg}35,000 for the Auxiliary and Reserve Forces is a *hidden economy, for it shows that this non-regular portion of the Service is steadily growing and thus easing the burden on the more expensive regular units. 1972 N.Y. Times 3 Dec. 16/1 (headline) A hidden economy is booming in Italy. 1990 Chicago Tribune (Nexis) 1 Apr. c5 Manufacturers may take hidden economies in the way they join the dozens of tiny slats together, but visually, it's impossible to tell most knockoffs from the Cassina copies. 1996 Guardian 30 Mar. 40/1 Prostitution is where the hidden economy (black is now politically incorrect) glamorously blends into organised crime, hidden from the gaze of the taxman. |