saeculum

• saeclum (poetic)
• sēclum (poetic, rare)
• sēculum (poetic, rare)

Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- (“to sow”). Or, from *sh₂ey- (“to bind, knit, tie together, tie to, connect”) + *-tlom (instrumental suffix) (whence Latin -culum), in the sense of successive generations being linked together over time. Confer Lithuanian sėkla and Gaulish Sētlocenia.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈsae̯.ku.lum/, [ˈsae̯.kʊ.ɫũ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛ.ku.lum/, [ˈsɛː.ku.lum]

saeculum n (genitive saeculī); second declension

1. race, breed
2. generation, lifetime
3. the amount of time between an occurrence and the death of the final person who was alive at that occurrence
4. age, time
5. century
6. worldliness; the world

Second declension.

• in saecula saeculorum
• saeculāris

• saeculum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• saeculum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• saeculum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• saeculum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the spirit of the times, the fashion: saeculi consuetudo or ratio atque inclinatio temporis (temporum)
    
  • universal history: omnis memoria, omnis memoria aetatum, temporum, civitatum or omnium rerum, gentium, temporum, saeculorum memoria
    
• saeculum in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• saeculum in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• Watkins, Calvert (1985), “sē-”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Tucker, T.G., Etymological Dictionary of Latin, Ares Publishers, 1976 (reprint of 1931 edition).
• Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN