Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SE'CRET-IST, n.

A dealer in secrets. [Not in use.] – Boyle.

SE'CRE-TI'TIOUS, a.

Parted by animal secretion. – Floyer.

SE'CRET-LY, adv.

1. Privately; privily; not openly; without the knowledge of others; as, to dispatch a messenger secretly.
2. Inwardly; not apparently or visibly; latently. Now secretly with inward grief she pin'd. – Addison.

SE'CRET-NESS, n.

1. The state of being hid or concealed.
2. The quality of keeping a secret. – Donne.

SE'CRE-TO-RY, a.

Performing the office of secretion; as, secretory vessels. – Ray.

SECT, n. [Fr. secte; It. setta; L. and Sp. secta; from L. seco, to cut off, to separate.]

1. A body or number of persons united in tenets, chiefly in philosophy or religion, but constituting a distinct party by holding sentiments different from those of other men. Most sects have originated in a particular person, who taught and propagated some peculiar notions in philosophy or religion, and who is considered to have been its founder. Among the Jews, the principal sects were the Pharisees, Sadduccees, and Essenes. In Greece were the Cynic sect, founded by Autisthenes; and the Academic sect, by Plato. The Academic sect gave birth to the Peripatetic, and the Cynic to the Stoic. – Enfield.
2. A cutting or cion. [Not used.] – Shak.

SECT-A'RI-AN, a. [L. sectarius.]

Pertaining to a sect or to sects; as, sectarian principles or prejudices.

SECT-A'RI-AN, n.

One of a sect; one of a party in religion which has separated itself from the established church, or which holds tenets different from those of the prevailing denomination in a kingdom or state.

SECT-A'RI-AN-ISM, n.

The disposition to dissent from the established church or predominant religion, and to form new sects.

SECT'A-RISM, n.

Sectarianism. [Little used.]

SECT'A-RIST, n.

A sectary. [Not much used.] – Warton.

SECT'A-RY, n. [Fr. sectaire.]

1. A person who separates from an established church, or from the prevailing denomination of Christians; one that belongs to a sect; a dissenter.
2. A follower; a pupil. [Not in use.] – Spenser.

SECT-A'TOR, n. [Fr. sectateur.]

A follower; a disciple; an adherent to a sect. [Not now used.] – Raleigh.

SECT'ILE, a. [L. sectilis, from seco, to cut.]

A sectile mineral is one that is midway between the brittle and the malleable, as soapstone and plumbago. – Phillips.

SEC'TION, n. [Fr. from L. sectio; seco, to cut off.]

1. The act of cutting, or of separating by cutting; as, the section of bodies. – Wotton.
2. A part separated from the rest; a division.
3. In books and writings, a distinct part or portion; the subdivision of a chapter; the division of a law or other writing or instrument. In laws, a section is sometimes called a paragraph or article. – Boyle. Locke.
4. A distinct part of a city, town, country, or people; a part of territory separated by geographical lines, or of a people considered as distinct. Thus we say, the northern or eastern section of the United States, the middle section, the southern or western section.
5. In geometry, a side or surface of a body or figure cut off by another; or the place where lines, planes, &c. cut each other. – Encyc.

SEC'TION-AL, a.

Pertaining to a section or distinct part of a larger body or territory. All sectional interests and party feeling; it is hoped, will hereafter yield to schemes of ambition. – J. Story. Hossack, Mem. of Clinton.

SEC'TION-AL-LY, adv.

In a sectional manner.

SECT'OR, n. [Fr. secteur, from L. seco, to cut.]

1. In geometry, a part of a circle comprehended between two radii and the arch; or a mixed triangle, formed by two radii and the arch of a circle. – Encyc.
2. A mathematical instrument so marked with lines of sines, tangents, secants, chords, &c. as to fit all radii and scales, and useful in finding the proportion between quantities of the same kind. The sector is founded on the fourth proposition of the sixth book of Euclid, where it is proved that similar triangles have their homologous sides proportional. – Encyc.

SEC'U-LAR, a. [Fr. seculaire; It. secolore; Sp. secular; L. secularis, from seculum, the world or an age.]

1. Pertaining to this present world, or to things not spiritual or holy; relating to things not immediately or primarily respecting the soul, but the body; worldly. The secular concerns of life respect making provision for the support of life, the preservation of health, the temporal prosperity of men, of states, &c. Secular power is that which superintends and governs the temporal affairs of men, the civil or political power; and is contradistinguished from spiritual or ecclesiastical power.
2. Among catholics, not regular; not bound by monastic vows or rules; not confined to a monastery, or subject to the rules of a religious community. Thus we say, the secular clergy, and the regular clergy. – Temple.
3. Coming once in a century; as, a secular year. Secular games, in Rome, were games celebrated once in an age or century, which lasted three days and nights, with sacrifices, theatrical shows, combats, sports, &c. – Valerius Maximus. Secular music, any music or songs not adapted to sacred uses. Secular song or poem, a song or poem composed for the secular games, or sung or rehearsed at those games.

SEC'U-LAR, n.

A church officer or officiate, whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir. Busby.

SEC-U-LAR'I-TY, n.

Worldliness; supreme attention to the things of the present life. Buchanan.

SEC-U-LAR-I-ZA'TION, n. [from secularize.]

The act of converting a regular person, place, or benefice into a secular one. Most cathedral churches were formerly regular, that is, the canons were of religious or monastic orders; but they have since been secularized. For the secularization of a regular church, there is wanted the authority of the Pope, that of the prince, the bishop of the place, the patron, and even the consent of the people. – Encyc.

SEC'U-LAR-IZE, v.t. [Fr. seculariser; from secular.]

1. To make secular; to convert from spiritual appropriation to secular or common use; or to convert that which is regular or monastic into secular; as, the ancient regular cathedral churches were secularized. At the Reformation, the abbey was secularized. – Coxe. Switz.
2. To make worldly.

SEC'U-LAR-IZ-ED, pp.

Converted from regular to secular.

SEC'U-LAR-IZ-ING, ppr.

Converting from regular or monastic to secular.