• secular •
Pronunciation: se-kyê-lêr • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Worldly, lay, nonreligious, not spiritual, not bound by monastic vows. 2. Lasting or occurring over a long period of time, or over and over for an extensive period.
Notes: This word is particularly useful in a country that strives to keep the state and religion discrete. It comes with an adverb, secularly, and two nouns, secularity and secularness. Secularism is the belief that morality should be based on human welfare, not on religion.
In Play: This word is far more often used in the sense of "nonreligious": "The secular side of marriage has come to dominate the sacred side." The second sense is still around, though: "The arts festival is a secular affair that has continued annually since its inception in 1971."
Word History: Today's Good Word was taken from Old French seculer (Modern French séculier), passed down from Late Latin saecularis "worldly, secular", from saeculum "age, lifespan, generation". It seems to have come from an old compound based on PIE sei-/soi- "to throw, sow, send" + -tlo "by means of, (together) with", the PIE instrumental case ending. If true, we find Sanskrit sayaka "arrow, sword", Latin serere "to sow", Russian semya "seed", Serbian seme "seed", colloquial Cornish has "seed", Welsh had "seed", Lithuanian sėkla "seed", and English sow and seed. (Now a note of gratitude for Arnaldo Mandel, who suggested today's splendid Good Word.)
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