Definition: Secular

From New World Encyclopedia

English

Pronunciation

Etymology

Latin saecularis, of the age, from saeculum

Adjective

  1. Not specifically religious.
  2. Not bound by the vows of a monastic order.
    secular clergy in Catholicism
  3. Temporal; something that is worldly or otherwise not based on something timeless.
  4. Happening from age to age.
    the secular games of ancient Rome
  5. Long-term.
    The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.
    (finance) on a secular basis = over the long term
  6. (astrophysics) Of or pertaining to long-term non-periodic irregularities, especially in planetary motion.
  7. (Template:Context 1) Unperturbed over time.
    • 2000, S. A. Dikanov, Two-dimensional ESEEM Spectroscopy, in New Advances in Analytical Chemistry (Atta-ur-Rahman, ed.), page 539
      The secular A and nonsecular B parts of hyperfine interaction for any particular frequencies να and νβ are derived from eqn.(21) by ...

Synonyms

  • worldly (1)

Antonyms

  • nonsecular
  • religious (1)
  • sacred (1) (used especially of music)
  • monastic (2)
  • regular (2) (as regular clergy in Catholicism)
  • eternal (3)
  • everlasting (3)
  • frequent (4)
  • unpredictable (4)
  • non-recurring (4)
  • short-term (5) (finance)
  • cyclical (5) (finance)

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors copied and adjusted this Wiktionary entry in accordance with NWE standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit for this article is due to both New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions at Wiktionary is accessible to researchers here: