secularize
Americanverb (used with object)
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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
He confided to Rabelais the government of his household, and persuaded the pope to secularize the abbey of St. Maurdes-Fosses, and conferred it upon the wit.
From Paris: With Pen and Pencil Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business by Bartlett, David W.
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
Pious Muslims came in the 1920s, leaving Iran as the shah secularized the nation, including banning the headscarf.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026
“You could make the argument that it … in the secularized form over the centuries becomes just a general principle that the morally correct person is somebody who doesn’t waste their time.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 15, 2024
He was candid in conceding a decline of faith in the increasingly secularized developed world.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2022
Now, in this secularized understanding of it, Silicon Valley is all about doing good and lining your pockets at the same time.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2022
In Italy, besides the church “galleries” still used for religious services, there are some which have been secularized and are now used as museums, e.g.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6 "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of" 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
Thus, while secularizing leaders were generally on the left and saw themselves as egalitarians, they were often viewed by the traditionalist, religious masses as elitists.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 3, 2015
The agitation for secularizing the schools, the immense majority of which have hitherto been denominational, gains continually in force and range under the influence of the news from Rome.
From Letters From Rome on the Council by D?llinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von
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.
