From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsecularsec‧u‧lar /ˈsekjələ $ -ər/ ●○○ adjective 1 RRELIGIONnot connected with or controlled by a church or other religious authority secular education our modern secular society► see thesaurus at religious2 RRCa secular priest lives among ordinary people, rather than with other priests in a monastery
Examples from the Corpus
secular• The government is secular.• Knowledge is no longer sacred but secular.• Harris did all the preliminary research and visited the secular buildings, Pevsner confined himself to churches and medieval domestic buildings.• Without doubt, the latter development represents a secular change in the strategic environment of profound importance.• secular music• The solution might well be an ecumenical link, or a secular organisation where we could bring a spiritual dimension.• Twenty-six women from the church and secular press, radio and television agencies participated.• And, he might have added, a special kind of secular salvation.• Yet the irreligious Jinnah wanted two religious states, while the religious Gandhi would countenance only a united secular state.• The priesthood of central computing has already given way to a secular world of laypeople playing with multiplying microprocessors.Origin secular (1300-1400) Old French seculer, from Latin saecularis “coming once in an age”, from saeculum “breed, generation” 