Saeculum
/ˈsae̯.kʊ.lʊm/noun
In Latin, a generation, age, or lifetime; later, a secular age or worldly period.
Did you know?Roman writers used saeculum to measure not just time, but the lifespan of a people, and the same root later gave English the eerie word secular — the world of time, not eternity.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*seh₂i-
“to bind, tie, or hold together”
Early Latin
Latin
saeculum
“a generation; an age; the span of a human lifetime”
Classical Latin
Latin
saeculum
“an age of the world; a period marked by one generation after another”
Late Latin
Latin
saecularis
“of an age; worldly; not ecclesiastical”
Old French
Old French
seculer
“worldly, temporal, not religious”
Middle English
English
seculer / secular
“pertaining to the worldly or temporal, as opposed to the sacred”
Modern English
English
secular
“nonreligious; worldly; not connected with the church”