secular

Not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical.

Adjective

  1. Not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical.

    Synonyms: areligious temporal worldly

    Antonyms: nonsecular religious sacred

  2. Temporal; worldly, or otherwise not based on something timeless.

    Synonyms: chronological

    Antonyms: nonsecular

  3. Not bound by the vows of a religious order.
    • Near-synonym: nonmonastic
    • secular clergy in Catholicism

    Synonyms: nonmonastic

    Antonyms: monastic nonsecular regular

    Coordinate Terms: religious

  4. Happening once in an age or century.
    • Near-synonyms: centurial, centennial
    • The secular games of ancient Rome were held to mark the end of a saeculum and the beginning of the next.

    Synonyms: centurial centennial

    Antonyms: nonsecular

    Coordinate Terms: epochal

  5. Continuing over a long period of time.
    • The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.
    • on a secular basis
    • In this event, the s#92;phi(k) curve in Fig. 15.5 will be subject to a secular upward shift, resulting in successively higher intersections with the #92;lambdak ray and also in larger values of #92;bark. - 2005, Alpha...

    Synonyms: long-term nonsecular

    Antonyms: short-term cyclical

  6. Centuries-old, ancient.
    • 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...

    Synonyms: plurisecular multisecular nonsecular

  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...

    Antonyms: nonsecular

  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 ... - 2000, S. A. Dikanov, Two-dimensional ESEEM Spectroscopy, in New Advances in...

    Antonyms: nonsecular

Origin

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

Forms

more secular most secular sæcular

Synonyms

areligious civil earthly irreligious laicist laicistic mundane nonreligious profane secular temporal unconsecrated unsanctified worldly

Antonyms

eternal everlasting frequent unpredictable non-recurring clerical ecclesiastical holy intemporal lay nonprofane nonsecular nontemporal religious sanctified spiritual unholy unprofane unsecular untemporal unworldly

Related

fin de siècle secle material mundane practical quotidian rational atheistic godless

Derived

antisecular intersecular intrasecular multisecular palaeosecular paleosecular plurisecular postsecular presecular pro-secular pseudosecular secular arm secular clergy secular equilibrium secularisation secularism secularist secularity secularization secularize secularly secularness secular progressivism secular religion

Noun

  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 - 1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the...
  2. A church official whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir.
  3. A layman, as distinguished from a clergyman.

Forms

seculars sæcular