Saecularism
/ˌsiːkjʊˈlærɪzəm/noun
A doctrine or attitude favoring secular rather than religious or spiritual concerns.
Did you know?Its root comes from Latin saeculum, a word for an age or lifetime—not originally a denial of spirit, but a way of marking what belongs to this world and this era.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*seh₂i-
“to bind, tie together; related to the idea of a generation or succession in some reconstructions”
Latin
Latin
saeculum
“an age, generation, lifetime, or era”
Late Latin
Latin
saecularis
“of an age, worldly, belonging to a particular time”
Old French
Old French
seculer
“worldly; not ecclesiastical”
Middle English
English
seculer
“worldly, temporal, not religious”
Modern English
English
secularism
“the principle of separating religion from civic or public affairs”