Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PRIV'I-TY, n. [Fr. privauté. See Private and Privy.]

1. Privacy; secrecy; confidence. I will to you, in privity, discover the drift of my purpose. [Little used.] – Spenser.
2. Private knowledge; joint knowledge with another of a private concern, which is often supposed to imply consent or concurrence. All the doors were laid open for his departure, not without the privity of the prince of Orange. – Swift. But it is usual to say, “a thing is done with his privity and consent;” in which phrase, privity signifies merely private knowledge.
3. Privities, in the plural, secret parts; the parts which modesty requires to be concealed.