The secant method is a root-finding algorithm that uses successive secants of a function to linearly approximate the root. It requires two initial guesses, x0 and x1, to construct a secant line through the points (x0, f(x0)) and (x1, f(x1)). The x-intercept of this line provides the next approximation x2. Repeating this process iteratively refines the approximation until the root is found to within a desired precision. The secant method converges faster than bisection near roots and does not require evaluating derivatives, but it may fail to converge for some functions.