What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Mortal vs Secular - What's the difference?

mortal | secular |

As adjectives the difference between mortal and secular

is that mortal is susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal while secular is not specifically religious.

As nouns the difference between mortal and secular

is that mortal is a human; someone susceptible to death while secular is a secular ecclesiastic, or one not bound by monastic rules.

mortal

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal.
  • * 1883 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), :
    • I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of his confessions and make an end of me.
  • Causing death; deadly, fatal, killing, lethal (now only of wounds, injuries etc.).
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.11:
    • Blyndfold he was; and in his cruell fist / A mortall bow and arrowes keene did hold […].
  • Fatally vulnerable; vital.
  • * Milton
    • Last of all, against himself he turns his sword, but missing the mortal place, with his poniard finishes the work.
  • Of or relating to the time of death.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, / Or in the natal or the mortal hour.
  • Affecting as if with power to kill; deathly.
  • * Dryden
    • The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright.
  • * mortal enemy
  • Human; belonging to man, who is mortal.
    • mortal''' wit or knowledge; '''mortal power
  • * Milton
    • The voice of God / To mortal ear is dreadful.
  • Very painful or tedious; wearisome.
    • a sermon lasting two mortal hours
    (Sir Walter Scott)
  • (UK, slang) Very drunk; wasted; smashed.
    • Let's go out and get mortal !

    Derived terms

    * mortality * mortal sin

    Synonyms

    * (causing death) fatal, lethal, baneful

    Antonyms

    * (susceptible to death) immortal, everlasting * (of or relating to death) natal

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A human; someone susceptible to death.
  • :
  • *1596 , (William Shakespeare), (w, A Midsummer Night's Dream)
  • *:Lord what fools these mortals be!
  • *
  • *:But then I had the flintlock by me for protection. ¶ There were giants in the days when that gun was made; for surely no modern mortal could have held that mass of metal steady to his shoulder. The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window.

    • Antonyms

    * immortal

    secular

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (archaic)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not specifically religious.
  • Temporal; something that is worldly or otherwise not based on something timeless.
  • (Christianity) Not bound by the vows of a monastic order.
    • secular clergy in Catholicism
  • Happening once in an age or century.
    • The secular games of ancient Rome were held to mark the end of a saeculum and the beginning of the next.
  • Continuing over a long period of time, long-term.
    • The long-term growth in population and income accounts for most secular trends in economic phenomena.
    ''on a secular basis
  • * 2006 , The Economist, Economics focus: Dividing the pie
    • The skewed distribution of productivity gains is thus less a new phenomenon than a secular trend.
  • (literary) Centuries-old, ancient.
  • * 1899 ,
    • The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of change, of conquest, of trade, of massacres, of blessings.
  • (astrophysics) Of or pertaining to long-term non-periodic irregularities, especially in planetary motion.
  • (atomic physics) Unperturbed over time.
  • * 2000 , S. A. Dikanov, Two-dimensional ESEEM Spectroscopy'', in ''New Advances in Analytical Chemistry (Atta-ur-Rahman, ed.), page 539
    • The secular A and nonsecular B parts of hyperfine interaction for any particular frequencies ?? and ?? are derived from eqn.(21) by ...

    Synonyms

    * (not religious) worldly

    Antonyms

    * nonsecular * (not religious) religious * (not religious) sacred (used especially of music) * (not bound by monastic vows) monastic * (not bound by monastic vows) regular (as regular clergy in Catholicism) * eternal, everlasting * frequent * unpredictable * non-recurring * (finance) short-term * (finance) cyclical

    References

    * Webster's English Dictionary

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A secular ecclesiastic, or one not bound by monastic rules.
    • (Burke)
  • A church official whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir.
    • (Busby)
  • A layman, as distinguished from a clergyman.

    • Anagrams

    * ----