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   secular

   /ˈsɛkjʊlə/

   adjective

   • 1. not connected with religious or spiritual matters: "secular buildings"
   • 2. (of clergy) not subject to or bound by religious rule; not belonging to or living in a monastic or other order.
   • 3. of or denoting slow changes in the motion of the sun or planets.
   • 4. (of a fluctuation or trend) occurring or persisting over an indefinitely long period: "there is evidence that the slump is not cyclical but secular"
   • 5. occurring once every century or similarly long period (used especially in reference to celebratory games in ancient Rome).

   noun

   • 1. a secular priest.

   Word Origin Middle English: secular (sense 1 of the adjective, sense 2 of the adjective) from Old French seculer, from Latin saecularis, from saeculum ‘generation, age’, used in Christian Latin to mean ‘the world’ (as opposed to the Church); secular (sense 3 of the adjective, sense 4 of the adjective, sense 5 of the adjective) (early 19th century) from Latin saecularis ‘relating to an age or period’.

   Derivatives

   • 1. secularity noun
   • 2. secularly adverb

   Scrabble Points: 9

   • S

     1

   • E

     1

   • C

     3

   • U

     1

   • L

     1

   • A

     1

   • R

     1

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