What does “secretear” mean in Spanish?

Secretear is the verb for two people leaning in to whisper so no one else catches it — gossiping, plotting, or sharing something private under their breath. The RAE marks it colloquial and intransitive: you secretear with someone, not secretear a thing. It’s built from secreto plus the busy little suffix -ear, the same machine behind chatear and textear, which tends to make a noun into an everyday, repeatable action.

The noun form is “secreteo” — the whispering itself, as in “Basta de secreteos.” In the scene, one character eyes two others murmuring off to the side and asks, “¿Qué estarán secreteando?” (“What are they whispering about?”), the perfect snapshot of the word: not a single announced secret but a low, conspiratorial back-and-forth. Close cousins are cuchichear, susurrar and murmurar, but secretear specifically frames it as keeping others out.