| 释义 |
secular, a. and n.|ˈsɛkjʊlə(r)|
Forms: 3–6 seculer, 4–5 seculere (4 seculeer, secler, 4–5 seclere, 5 seculier), 5– secular.
[In branch I, a. OF. seculer (mod.F. séculier), ad. L. sæculāris, f. sæcul-um generation, age, in Christian Latin ‘the world’, esp. as opposed to the church: see secle, siecle. In branch II, directly ad. L. sæculāris, whence mod.F. séculaire (which has influenced some of the uses in Eng.). Cf. Sp. seglar, secular, Pg. secular, It. secolare.]
A. adj.
I. Of or pertaining to the world.
1. Eccl.
a. Of members of the clergy: Living ‘in the world’ and not in monastic seclusion, as distinguished from ‘regular’ and ‘religious’. secular canon: see canon n.2 secular abbot: a person not a monk, who had the title and part of the revenues, but not the functions of an abbot.
In early use frequently placed after the n., as canon secular, priest secular.
c1290St. Edmund 393 in S. Eng. Leg. I. 442 At salesburi he was i-maket Canoun seculer. 1297–1868 [see canon n. 1]. a1300Cursor M. 27244 In scrift..enentes clergis seculers to þe preist at frain it feres o symony. c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. I. 73 And þus boþ clerkes seculers and þese newe religiouse forsaken þes two weies. a1400Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS. xxxii. 1054, I þat am in Religioun, I naue no pouwer to ȝiue no mete, Ne drinke..Þerfore me were beter seculer. 1402Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 23 Why be ye evill apaid that secular priestes should preach the gospell? 1546Yorks. Chantry Surv. (Surtees) II. 426 A seculer man, deane or incombent there. 1673Essex Papers (Camden) I. 138, I made use of some Fryers, who all ways have their litle wrangles wth y⊇ secular Clergy. 1716M. Davies Athen. Brit. III. 86 Cardinal Rochefaucault being the Secular or Commendatory Abbot thereof. 1782Burke Penal Laws agst. Ir. Cath. Wks. VI. 235 The secular clergy..are universally fallen into such contempt, that [etc.]. 1874Stubbs Const. Hist. I. viii. §84 Before the middle of the eighth century..the secular were synodically divided from the monastic clerks. 1884Manch. Exam. 25 Feb. 5/5 A few secular priests have been invited to co-operate with the resident clergy.
b. Of or pertaining to secular clergy.
1570Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 4/2 Reducing regular Monasteries, to a secular state. 1686tr. Chardin's Trav. Persia 96 It differs little from the secular Habit. 1831Sir W. Hamilton Discuss. (1852) 414 At the commencement of the fourteenth century..the number of the secular colleges [was], at the highest, only three. 1871Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) IV. xviii. 312 The minster of Saint Werburh, then a secular, but soon to become a monastic, house.
2. a. Belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the church and religion; civil, lay, temporal. Chiefly used as a negative term, with the meaning non-ecclesiastical, non-religious, or non-sacred.
secular arm (= med.L. brachium seculare, F. le bras séculier): the civil power as ‘invoked’ by the church to punish offenders.
c1290Beket 926 in S. Eng. Leg. I. 133 And also ȝe bez alȝare In seculer court to demen me: And þat nolde nouȝt wel fare. 1340Ayenb. 215 God..nele þet me maki uorewerdes ne noyses ne nyedes seculeres þerinne [i.e. His house]. c1380Wyclif Wks. (1880) 384 Þai occupien not siche lordeschipis in propir, as seculer lordis done, but in comoun, like as the apostles. Ibid. 385 As prisonynge & hangynge..the whiche sum-tyme bylongyd oonly to the seculer arme of þe chirche. 1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) V. 97 Þat no man schulde accuse þe ministres of holy chirche to fore a seculer iuge. 1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) V. 289 Simplicius the pope..ordeynede that noo clerke scholde receyve investiture..of the honde of a seculer lay man [Trevisa of a lewed man, L. de manu laici]. 1456Sir G. Haye Law Arms (S.T.S.) 93 Kirk men suld pay tailles, tributis and imposiciouns to seclere kingis or princis. 1593Nashe Christ's T. 34 The tongue is the Iudge..; the rest of our faculties and powers, are but the secular executioners of his sentence. a1600Hooker Eccl. Pol. vii. xv. §14 And divers Councils likewise there are, which have forbidden the Clergy to bear any Secular Office. 1667Milton P.L. xii. 517 Then shall they seek..Places and titles, and with these to joine Secular power, though feigning still to act By spiritual. 1673Temple Observ. United Prov. v. 165, I intend not here to speak of Religion at all as a Divine, but as a mere Secular man. 1737Franklin Ess. Wks. 1840 II. 292 Truth never fears the encounter; she scorns the aid of the secular arm. 1765Blackstone Comm. I. 366 The elected bishop could neither be consecrated, nor receive any secular profits. 1853Robertson Serm. Ser. iv. ii. (1863) 20 We stigmatize first one department of life and then another as secular; and so religion becomes a pale, unreal thing. 1873J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. III. iii. vi. 333 Bishops now were great secular magistrates, and..were involved in secular occupations. 1875Tennyson Q. Mary iv. i, A secular kingdom is but as the body Lacking a soul.
†b. transf. Of or belonging to the ‘common’ or ‘unlearned’ people. Obs.
1589Nashe Greene's Arcadia To Gentl. Students A 3 b, Oft haue I obserued..a secular wit that hath liued all dayes of his life by, what doe you lacke? to be more iudiciall..then our quadrant crepundios. 1629B. Jonson New Inn v. i, Hang him poore snip, a secular shop-wit!
c. Of literature, history, art (esp. music), hence of writers or artists: Not concerned with or devoted to the service of religion; not sacred; profane. Also of buildings, etc., Not dedicated to religious uses.
c1450in Aungier Syon (1840) 297 Not medlynge ther speche with seculer fables and fryuoles. 1529More Dyaloge iv. Wks. 262/2 One..neither in holi scripture nor in seculare litterature vnlerned. 1801Busby Dict. Mus., Secular-Music... Whatever is composed for the theatre or chamber. An expression used in opposition to that of Sacred-Music. 1801Strutt Sports & Past. iii. ii. 120 The plays mentioned in the preceding pages, and especially the miracles and mysteries, differed greatly from the secular plays..acted by strolling companies. 1814Chalmers Evid. Chr. Revelation (1849) I. ii. iii. 193 Points in which the historians of the New Testament can be brought into comparison with the secular historians of the age. 1835I. Taylor Spir. Despot. iii. 85 The education of youth was entrusted not to them [the priests], but to the professors of secular arts—rhetoric and gymnastics. 1860Pusey Min. Proph. 593 He says that, the bells of the horses, things simply secular, should bear the same inscription as the plate on the high priest's forehead. 1861Stanley East. Ch. iii. (1869) 97 A secular building was fitted up as a temporary house of prayer. 1874Reynolds John Bapt. ii. 79 The supernatural conditions attributed in secular legend to the births of Buddha, Pythagoras and Plato. 1876Rock Text. Fabr. 63 The excellence of her work in secular silks.
d. Of education, instruction; Relating to non-religious subjects. (In modern use often implying the exclusion of religious teaching from education, or from the education provided at the public expense.) Of a school: That gives secular education.
1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 32 b, The argumentes of seculer doctryne be argumentes of reason. 1867in G. Duff Pol. Surv. (1868) 50 This may be hoped for in the increase of liberal sound and secular education in the Ottoman dominions. 1875Manning Mission Holy Ghost xiii. 377 The Holy See has always laid down..that secular and religious instruction shall never be parted in Education. 1876J. Grant Burgh Sch. Scot. ii. xiii. 424 These persons maintain that the public Schools should be purely secular.
3. a. Of or belonging to the present or visible world as distinguished from the eternal or spiritual world; temporal, worldly. Also secular-minded adj.
1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxxvi. §5 Religion and the feare of God as well induceth secular prosperitie as euerlasting blisse in the world to come. 1664H. More Myst. Iniq. 251 The Sun and Moon have either a Spiritual signification or a Secular. 1875Gladstone in McCabe Life Holyoake II. 163, I do not believe that secular motives are adequate either to propel or to restrain the children of our race. 1883T. H. Green Proleg. Ethics Introd. 1 Nor does it [moral philosophy] by any means confine itself to what are commonly counted secular or ‘positive’ considerations.
Comb.1899T. Veblen Theory of Leisure Class xii. 314 The sacerdotal scheme of life..does not hold good for the clergy of those denominations which have..diverged from the old established schedule of beliefs or observances... Their manner of life..does not differ in an extreme degree from that of secular-minded persons. 1930A. Birrell Et Cetera 159 An equally veracious, though most secular⁓minded Presbyterian divine. 1957N. Frye Anat. Criticism 265 In the Anglo-Saxon congregation of Wulfstan there must have been a few secular-minded highbrows who were thinking..of the preacher's mastery of alliterative rhythm.
b. Caring for the present world only; unspiritual. rare.
c1425Orolog. Sapient. vii. in Anglia X. 388/9 If they were of so harde herte and seculere affeccyone þat [etc.]. 1850Robertson Serm. Ser. iii. ii. (1857) 20 Esau..is called in Scripture a profane, that is, not a distinctly vicious, but a secular or worldly person.
absol.1883A. Edersheim Life Jesus II. 275 To the secular nothing is spiritual; and to the spiritual nothing is secular.
¶4. Used for: Pertaining to or accepting the doctrine of secularism; secularistic.
secular societies: the designation given to associations formed in various English towns from 1852 onwards to promote the spread of secularist opinions.
1856R. Owen in McCabe Life Holyoake (1908) I. 292 Your Secular Societies will do well to merge into this movement. 1870G. J. Holyoake Princ. Secularism 47 We believe there is sufficient soundness in Secular principles to make way in the world. 1884T. Cooper Men of the Time (ed. 11) 582/1 Mr. Holyoake is editor of the Present, a secular and co-operative review.
II. Of or belonging to an age or long period.
5. Occurring or celebrated once in an age, century, or very long period. secular games, secular plays, secular shows [L. ludi sæculares]: in ancient Rome, games continuing three days and three nights celebrated once in an ‘age’ or period of 120 years. secular poem [L. carmen sæculare], a hymn composed to be sung at the secular games.
1599Pont Right Reckoning of Years 34 Supposing that they celebrate their secular solemnities at the precise end and periode of every hundreth yeare. 1601Holland Pliny viii. xlii. I. 221 The secular solemnities, exhibited by Claudius Cæsar, in the Circensian games. 1606― Sueton. 52 He restored againe..the Sæcular playes. 1696B. Kennett Antiq. Rome ii. v. vii. 292 The famous Secular Poem of Horace was compos'd for this last Day, in the Secular Games held by Augustus. 1697Evelyn Numism. iii. 62 To..divert the People..during the Secular Shews. 1706Hearne Collect. 3 Apr. (O.H.S.) I. 215 A letter sent to our University from the University of Francfort..inviting them to celebrate the secular day of the Foundation of their University, wch will happen in this month, it being now just two Hundred years since that University was Founded. 1716Addison Free-holder No. 46 ⁋1 When Augustus celebrated the secular year, which was kept but once in a century. 1790Gibbon Misc. Wks. (1814) III. 418 Had a fortnight more been given to the philosopher, he might have celebrated his secular festival [sc. his hundredth birthday]. 1862Merivale Rom. Emp. lxviii. (1865) VIII. 332 One man asserted that the secular fire would descend at the moment when..he should be seen transformed into a stork. 1869Rawlinson Anc. Hist. 509 M. Julius Philippus..celebrated the secular games in commemoration of the thousandth year from the founding of the city. 1884Q. Rev. July 1 Changes in..the City..have been going on at a rate..unknown to any former generation, except those distant generations which have witnessed the rare and secular phenomena of siege, fire, and plague.
6. Living or lasting for an age or ages. Now chiefly with reminiscence of the scientific sense 7. Also (of trees, etc., after F. séculaire), centuries old.
1629Donne Serm. cxxxi. Wks. 1839 V. 435 If I had a secular glass, a glass that would run an age.., it would not be enough to tell the godly man what his treasure is. 1671Milton Samson 1707 And though her body die, her fame survives, A secular bird ages of lives. 1847Emerson Poems, Monadnoc 311 Slowsure Britain's secular might. 1850Tennyson In Mem. xli, I shall be thy mate no more, Tho' following with an upward mind The wonders that have come to thee, Thro' all the secular to-be. 1868–9Tyndall Fragm. Sci. v. (1871) 103 The improvement of man is secular—not the work of an hour or of a day. 1870Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 253 We envy the secular leisures of Methusaleh. 1876R. F. Burton Gorilla L. I. 36 A fern field surrounded by a forest of secular trees. 1879Stevenson Trav. with Donkey 186 Mankind outlives saecular animosities, as a single man awakens from the passions of a day. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. III. vi. cxv. 653 The centripetal forces are permanent and secular forces, working from age to age.
7. In scientific use, of processes of change: Having a period of enormous length; continuing through long ages.
a. Astr. Chiefly of changes in the orbits or the periods of revolution of the planets, as in secular acceleration, secular equation, secular inequality, secular variation. The terms secular acceleration, secular variation were formerly also used (with reference to the sense ‘century’ of L. sæculum) for the amount of change per 100 years; similarly † secular precession (see quot. 1812). secular equation is also used more widely to designate any equation of the form {vb}aij-bijλ{vb} = 0 (i,j = 1,2, . . ., n), in which the left-hand side is a determinant and which arises in quantum mechanics.
1801Monthly Rev. XXXV. 537 M. De La Place..found the secular equation of the moon to be due to the action of the sun on the moon. 1812Woodhouse Astron. ix. 63 The secular precession, that is, the accumulated precessions of 100 years. 1812–16Playfair Nat. Phil. (1819) II. 275 In the orbit of Mars, the eccentricity is diminishing. The secular variation of the greatest equation of the centre is—37{pp}. 1834M. Somerville Connex. Phys. Sci. iii. (1849) 16 Secular inequalities. 1862Cayley Math. Papers (1890) III. 522 On the Secular Acceleration of the Moon's Mean Motion. 1937E. C. Kemble Fund. Princ. Quantum Mech. x. 361 Its components must yield a nontrivial (i.e., nonvanishing) solution of the set of g equations σn(Amn - aδmn)xn = 0... Such a solution exists only if the determinant of the coefficients vanishes, i.e., if a is a root of the so-called ‘secular’ equation det (A - aI) = ..0. 1974Gill & Willis Pericyclic Reactions i. 21 To obtain the wave functions corresponding to these energies it is necessary to solve the secular equations using the appropriate values of E.
b. Geol., Physical Geogr., Meteorol., etc.
1833Lyell Princ. Geol. Gloss., Secular Refrigeration, the periodical cooling and consolidation of the globe, from a supposed original state of fluidity from heat. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxiii. 308 A secular elevation of the coastline. 1861Tyndall Fragm. Sci. xiii. (1871) 399 The earth's magnetic constituents are gradually changing their distribution. This change is very slow; it is technically called the secular change. 1867H. Macmillan Bible Teach. xvi. (1870) 320 Those grand secular tides which have punctually recurred every ten thousand years. 1872― True Vine v. 176 The earth has its secular seasons as well as its annual. 1880Haughton Phys. Geog. ii. 53 The contraction of the globe due to secular cooling. 1887Abercromby Weather 312 Annual and Secular Variations.
8. Econ. and Statistics. Of a fluctuation or trend: occurring or persisting over an unlimited period; not periodic or short-term.
1895A. Marshall Princ. Econ. (ed. 3) I. v. v. 470 There are secular movements of normal price, caused by the gradual growth of knowledge, of population and of capital, and the changing conditions of demand and supply from one generation to another. 1926L. D. Edie Econ. II. iv. 49 Economic fluctuations fall into four major types: seasonal, secular, cyclical, and residual. 1971H. S. Shryock et al. Methods & Materials Demography II. xiii. 377/2 If the observations are made at different times of the year, seasonal movements may also be apparent. When we are trying to describe the growth of a population over a relatively longer period of time (for example, India from 1872 to 1961) we are generally interested in the secular trend only. 1973Daily Tel. 15 Jan. 17/6 This is the first time the Government has had to pay so much for money but the secular trend of interest rates will stop rising only if the rate of inflation is brought down. 1976Sci. Amer. Sept. 107/1 The secular trend of workers migrating out of agricultural jobs as a result of technological change in agriculture has recently slackened.
B. n.
1. a. One of the secular clergy, as distinguished from a ‘regular’ or monk.
c1290Beket 2205 in S. Eng. Leg. I. 169 Ase heo strepten of his cloþes, al a-boue heo founde Clerkene cloþes..and..Monekene Abite with-Inne..So þat he was Monek with-Inne, and seculer with-oute. c1330R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 243, & þer was scho inne four & fifty ȝere, Norised with Wynne, nunne and seculere. c1450St. Cuthbert (Surtees) 6230 He helpid seculers to putt oute Fra þe kirke, and monkes deuoute sette þare. 1544Bale Chron. Sir J. Oldcastle 27 b, The seculars and fryers coude not therin agre. Ibid. 39 Both..seculars and relygyouse with dyuerse other expert menne. a1698T. White Monitions & Advices ii. (1720) 49 Monks, who despised the settled Clergy, and called them Seculars, giving themselves the glorious Title of Religious. 1864Bryce Holy Rom. Emp. v. (1875) 67 Endeavours to bring the seculars into a monastic life.
b. A Jesuit lay brother.
1641R. Brooke Eng. Episc. 10 The others were like the Seculars among the Jesuites, And..did (as the Seculars do) perform the Civill part of those Religious Services.
c. (See quot.)
1801Busby Dict. Mus., Seculars, those unordained officiates of any cathedral, or chapel, whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir.
2. One who is engaged in the affairs of the world as distinct from the church; a layman.
c1400Apol. Loll. 77 Now bi new lawis, clerkis propriun to hemsilf temporal þingis as seclereis. c1425St. Mary of Oignies i. i. in Anglia VIII. 135/30 Hir fader and modir, as maner is of seculers, wolde haue rayed hir wiþ delycate garmentis. 1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 115/3 The monkes that goon out of theyr..selles yf they conuerse longe with seculiers they muste nedes lese theyr holynesse. 1509Watson Ship of Fools ii. (1517) A iij b, In many places be some counsellers & gouernours of courtes, as well seculers as ecclesyastykes. 1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. I. 119 marg., The seculars of the Realme in Scotland ar gouerned be the burgesse lawis. 1618Hales Lett. fr. Synod Dort 6 The clergy though that if it pleased the Seculars it might be done. 1710Lond. Gaz. No. 4726/1 All the Inhabitants..as well Seculars as Ecclesiasticks. 1829Landor Imag. Conv., Miguel & his Mother Wks. 1853 I. 560/1 Seculars do not know half the wickedness of the world,..until their pastors lead them by the hand and show it them.
†3. A centennial anniversary, centenary. rare.
1706Hearne Collect. 20 June (O.H.S.) I. 263 King of Prussia's Letter to y⊇ Queen about y⊇ University's Celebration of y⊇ Secular of Francfurt. 1706Ibid. 27 June I. 267. 1709 Ibid. 27 Aug. II. 241, 242. |