Saecular
/ˈsɛkjʊlər/noun
Relating to worldly affairs rather than religion; also lasting for an age or century.
Did you know?Its root is Latin *saeculum*, an “age” or “generation,” and it also gave English *secular* and *saeculum*—words that originally measured time before they described the worldly vs. the sacred.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*sek-
“to cut”
Latin
Latin
saeculum
“an age, generation, span of a human lifetime”
Late Latin
Latin
saecularis
“of an age; worldly; belonging to the present world”
Middle English
English
seculer
“worldly, not ecclesiastical”
Modern English
English
secular
“relating to the non-religious affairs of ordinary life”