Secular

//ˈsɛkjʊlə// adj, name, noun

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical.
  2. 2
    Temporal; worldly, or otherwise not based on something timeless.
  3. 3
    Not bound by the vows of a religious order.

    "Near-synonym: nonmonastic"

  4. 4
    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."

  5. 5
    Continuing over a long period of time.

    "The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena."

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    Centuries-old, ancient. literary

    "The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings."

  2. 7
    Relating to long-term non-periodic irregularities, especially in planetary motion or magnetic field.

    "Laplace (1749–1827) "saved the world" by using probability theory to estimate the parameters accurately enough to show that the drift of Jupiter was not secular after all; the observations at hand had covered only a fraction of a cycle of an oscillation with a period of about 880 years."

  3. 8
    Unperturbed over time.

    "The secular A and nonsecular B parts of hyperfine interaction for any particular frequencies ν_α and ν_β are derived from eqn.(21) by ..."

Adjective
  1. 1
    of or relating to clergy not bound by monastic vows wordnet
  2. 2
    not concerned with or devoted to religion wordnet
  3. 3
    characteristic of those who are not members of the clergy wordnet
  4. 4
    characteristic of or devoted to the temporal world as opposed to the spiritual world wordnet
  5. 5
    of or relating to the doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.
Noun
  1. 1
    A secular ecclesiastic, or one not bound by monastic rules.

    "On further examination, I found the clergy, in general, persons of moderate minds and decorous manners : I include the seculars, and the regulars of both sexes"

  2. 2
    someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person wordnet
  3. 3
    A church official whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir.
  4. 4
    A layman, as distinguished from a clergyman.

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English seculer, from Old French seculer, from Latin saeculāris (“of the age”), from saeculum.

Etymology 2

From Middle English seculer, from Old French seculer, from Latin saeculāris (“of the age”), from saeculum.

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