Etymology
From Middle English seculer, from Old French seculer, from Latin saeculāris (“of the age”), from saeculum.
Adjective
secular (comparative more secular, superlative most secular)
- Not specifically religious.
- (Christianity) Not bound by the vows of a monastic order.
- secular clergy in Catholicism
- Temporal; something that is worldly or otherwise not based on something timeless.
- Happening once in an age or century.
- the secular games of ancient Rome
- Continuing over a long period of time, long-term.
- The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.
- Happening once in an age or century.
- The secular games of ancient Rome were held to mark the end of a saeculum and the beginning of the next.
- (finance) on a secular basis = over the long term
- (astrophysics) Of or pertaining to long-term non-periodic irregularities, especially in planetary motion.
- (atomic physics) Unperturbed over time.
Derived terms
- secularism
- secularist
Credits
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