secularize
Americanverb (used with object)
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secularizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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secularized,
past participle, past
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secularizing
present participle
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to make secular; separate from religious or spiritual connection or influences; make worldly or unspiritual; imbue with secularism.
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to change (clergy) from regular to secular.
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to transfer (property) from ecclesiastical to civil possession or use.
verb
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to change from religious or sacred to secular functions, etc
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to dispense from allegiance to a religious order
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law to transfer (property) from ecclesiastical to civil possession or use
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English legal history to transfer (an offender) from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts to that of the civil courts for the imposition of a more severe punishment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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secularizesimple
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secularizessimple
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have secularizedperfect
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has secularizedperfect
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am secularizingprogressive
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are secularizingprogressive
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is secularizingprogressive
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have been secularizingperfect progressive
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has been secularizingperfect progressive
Past
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secularizedsimple
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had secularizedperfect
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was secularizingprogressive
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were secularizingprogressive
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had been secularizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of secularize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In 2019, he was elected to Israel’s governing body, the Knesset, as a member of the Balad party, an Arab party that strives to secularize Israel.
From Slate ● Oct. 13, 2023
He contends that it will help secularize a province in which the Catholic Church long exerted outsize sway.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 19, 2021
In what direction have they taken their cultural quest to secularize the world?
From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2021
In the 1920s, the Mexican government’s attempt to secularize the country sparks a rebellion known as the Cristero War.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2020
Our friars had concluded to expatriate, rather than secularize, themselves, and were now en route for Kaiafa, a place concerning which I could only learn that it was in Syria.
From From the Oak to the Olive A Plain record of a Pleasant Journey by Julia Ward Howe
Whatever mix best secularizes the value of a given bundle.
From New York Times ● Jul. 11, 2016
Doctorow simply secularizes that prophecy into supine universal unconcern, ecological devastation and the nuclear holocaust.
From Time Magazine Archive
As Ms. Paperno notes, the practice of history, so understood, constitutes “a secularized version of immortality.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
But blasphemy laws were gradually relaxed as Sweden became increasingly secularized.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 20, 2023
Her argument is that in an increasingly secularized society — what’s recently been termed “dechurching” — human beings have assumed godlike power and responsibility, at least over their own bodies and identities.
From New York Times ● Jun. 25, 2023
The ad stops just short of suggesting the bear has a direct line to the heavens: it advocates a firmly secularized celebration of athleticism.
From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2022
The town contains the ruins of the Benedictine abbey of St Ludger, which was secularized in 1803.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 3 "Helmont, Jean" to "Hernosand" by Various
Brigid’s moment is happening as many Irish are disillusioned with traditional Roman Catholicism and its patriarchal leadership amid a secularizing culture.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 26, 2024
“I wouldn’t say he had an interest in secularizing it,” Duncan said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
“The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st-century show no signs of slowing,” wrote Gregory A. Smith, Pew’s associate director of research.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 14, 2021
Nevertheless, the political choices of the church, when added to the secularizing influence of foreign travel and higher incomes, have had an effect.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 19, 2018
While giving themselves cheerfully to the imparting of the education which their pupils are eager to acquire, they put forth resolute steady effort to counteract the secularizing tendency of their studies.
From Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 by James Kennedy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
