noun
definition
A secular ecclesiastic, or one not bound by monastic rules.
definition
A church official whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir.
definition
A layman, as distinguished from a clergyman.
adjective
definition
Not specifically religious; lay or civil, as opposed to clerical.
definition
Temporal; worldly, or otherwise not based on something timeless.
definition
Not bound by the vows of a monastic order.
example
secular clergy in Catholicism
definition
Happening once in an age or century.
example
The secular games of ancient Rome were held to mark the end of a saeculum and the beginning of the next.
definition
Continuing over a long period of time, long-term.
example
The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.
definition
Centuries-old, ancient.
definition
Relating to long-term non-periodic irregularities, especially in planetary motion or magnetic field.
definition
(atomic physics) Unperturbed over time.
Examples of secular in a Sentence
Burning was an English punishment for some secular offences.
There seems to have been no machinery for assisting the original or appellate jurisdiction of the pope by secular process, - by significavit or otherwise.
Primary education is free and secular, and is compulsory for children of 6 to 14 years.
Most kinds of offerings are now recoverable in secular courts.
The Babylonian calendars contain explicit directions for the observance of abstention from certain secular acts on certain days which forms a close parallel to the Jewish Sabbatical rules.
Theodosius began the system of giving secular authority to Church tribunals.
Incorrigible offenders on these matters were " left " to the secular power, to be corrected with due " animadversion."
Ecc. et Cler., excluded bishops from accusations before secular judges and commanded such accusations to be speedily brought before the tribunal of other bishops.
She has been a zealous supporter of Irish national education, which is theoretically "united secular and separate religious instruction."
This story is open to grave suspicion, as, apart from the miracles recorded, there are wide discrepancies between the secular Portuguese histories and the narratives written or inspired by Jesuit chroniclers of the 17th century.
Age mellowed her temper, and she turned more and more from secular ambitions to charity and religious works.
Mahommedan Babylonia (Persia) was the home of the gaonate, the central authority of religious Judaism, whose power transcended that of the secular exilarchate, for it influenced the synagogue far and wide, while the exilarchate was local.
Hebrew religious poetry was revived for synagogue hymnology, and, partly in imitation of Arabian models, a secular Hebrew poetry was developed in metre and rhyme.
In the early middle ages the title prelate was applied to secular persons in high positions and thence it passed to persons having ecclesiastical authority.
Mitres were also sometimes bestowed by the popes on secular sovereigns, e.g.
Its open advocacy of force attracts warlike races, and the intensity of its influence is increased by the fusion of secular and religious power, so that the Moslem Church is a Moslem state characterized by slavery, polygamy, and, subject to the autocracy of the ruler, by the theoretical.
The Japanese have produced few books of importance, and their compositions are chiefly remarkable as being lighter and more secular than is usual in Asia, but the older Chinese works take high rank both for their merits and the effect they have had.
But the inevitable opposition of the nobility to this policy was not mitigated by the fact that it was carried out by a churchman; the result was to embitter the antagonism of the secular party to the church and to concentrate it upon Wolsey's head.
Wolsey clearly foresaw his own fall, the consequent attack on the church and the triumph of the secular party.
Matthew is a vehement supporter of the monastic orders against their rivals, the secular clergy and the mendicant friars.
Henceforth the history of the city is that of the growing power, spiritual and temporal, of the bishops, whose secular influence was gradually supplanted in the 14th century by the advance of the rival power of the burghers.
It deals with-the secular crimes of spiritual persons, if of importance and if not capital (these last being reserved for the secular forum), and with heresy and schism.
His poems, both secular and religious, contained in his Diwan and scattered in the liturgy, are all in Hebrew, though he employed Arabic metres.
It is certain that he was a secular priest, and that he composed his history in the latter part of the 14th century; and it is probable that he was a chaplain in the cathedral of Aberdeen.
This is the first time since Peter the Great that the clergy have been given a voice in secular affairs in Russia.
From about 1200 till 1628 it was the seat of a bishopric, which at the latter date became a secular principality, being in 1648 incorporated with Brandenburg.
It was only after a bitter experience that the kingship was no longer regarded as a divine gift, and traditions have been revised in order to illustrate the opposition to secular authority.
Tobiah and his son Johanan were related by marriage to Judaean secular and priestly families, and active intrigues resulted, in which nobles and prophets took their part.
If his influence or theirs dictated her policy, there is no evidence of any objection to the union of the secular power with the highpriesthood.
The De prelates of Valerian is concerned with secular princes, and even as late as the 14th century the title was occasionally applied to secular magistrates.
From this event dates the beginning of the secular strife between England and France which runs like a red thread through medieval history.
In 180r the bailiwicks to the west of the Rhine were absorbed by France; in 1809 the Order was entirely suppressed, and its lands went to the secular principalities in which they lay.
The bishops, now increasingly absorbed in secular affairs, were content with a somewhat theoretical power of control, while the archdeacons rigorously asserted an independent position which implied great power and possibilities of wealth.
Through her he was appointed dean of the college of secular canons at Stoke-by-Clare in 1535.
With secular politics he had little to do, and he was never admitted to Elizabeth's privy council.
The church was dedicated in 1260 by Walter Bronescombe, bishop of Exeter; and c. 1335 Bishop John Grandisson, on founding a secular college here, greatly enlarged the church; it has been thought that, by copying the Early English style, he is responsible for more of the building than is apparent.
This interference with religious liberty led to some controversy; and ultimately those who differed from Guthrie founded the United Industrial School, giving combined secular and separate religious instruction.
An isolated use of the word " catholic " as a secular legal term survives in Scots law; a catholic creditor is one whose debt is secured over several or over all of the subjects belonging to the debtor.
From the first the Crusade, however clerical in its conception, was largely secular in its conduct; and thus, somewhat paradoxically, a religious enterprise aided the growth of the secular motive, and contributed to the escape of the laity from that tendency towards a papal theocracy, which was evident in the pontificate of Gregory VII.
But what the Third Crusade showed most clearly was that the crusading movement was being lost to the papacy, and becoming part of the demesne of the secular state - organized by the state on its own basis of taxation, and conducted by the state according to its own method of negotiation.
But before St Louis sailed for Damietta there intervened the miserable failure of one Crusade, and the secular and diplomatic success of another.
Nothing marks the secular attitude of the Italians at an epoch which decided the future course of both Renaissance and Reformation more strongly than the mundane proclivities of this apostolic secretary, heart and soul devoted to the resuscitation of classical studies amid conflicts of popes and antipopes, cardinals and councils, in all of which he bore an official part.
This book is chiefly remarkable for its unsparing satires on the monastic orders and the secular clergy.
He endeavoured to enforce celibacy upon the secular clergy.
Nor can we doubt that it was his influence which shaped the famous ordinance separating the ecclesiastical from the secular courts (c. 1076).
For this admixture of secular with spiritual aims there was considerable excuse.
The Koran, sacred and secular law, logic, poetry, arithmetic, with some medicine and geography, are the chief subjects of study.
He always showed the greatest interest in science and in literature, and he would have taken a position as a statesman of the first rank had he held office in any secular government.
Had Beaton confined himself to secular politics, his strenuous opposition to the plans of Henry VIII.
The secular masters of the university of Paris denounced the work to Pope Innocent IV., and the bishop of Paris sent it to the pope.