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
I need scarcely add how mean and vindictive would be the spirit that would secularize Trinity College, in order to injure the Irish Protestants, without any corresponding benefit to the Irish Catholics.
From University Education in Ireland by Samuel Haughton
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
Hospitals were secularized, orphanages and parish schools closed or often transformed into prep schools for rich kids causing the Church to relinquish much of its relevancy in the daily lives of Catholics.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2024
But blasphemy laws were gradually relaxed as Sweden became increasingly secularized.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 20, 2023
He was candid in conceding a decline of faith in the increasingly secularized developed world.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2022
When by the recess of 1803 the territories of the electorate on the left of the Rhine were given over to France and those on the right secularized, the electoral rank was abolished.
From Church History, Vol. 3 of 3 by J. H. Kurtz
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
France has taken a very important step in emancipating education from the power of the church—completely secularizing education.
From Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 Volume 1, Number 10 by Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes) Buchanan
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.
