"century" in seven languages
Meaningcentury
Spanish
/ˈsiglo/
masc.learned
Semi-learned (Old Spanish sieglo).
French
/sjɛkl/
masc.learned
Semi-learned: the expected popular form never established itself.
Italian
/ˈsɛkolo/
masc.learned
Portuguese
/ˈsɛkulu/
masc.learned
Romanian
/ˈsekol/
neut.learned
Older Romanian said veac, a Slavic word still heard in set phrases.
Catalan
/ˈseglə/
masc.learned
Semi-learned, like Spanish siglo: the c voiced but the word never fully wore down.
English
/ˈsɛntʃəɹi/
other source · Latin CENTURIA 'group of a hundred'
The Latin ancestor
SAECULUM‘a generation, an age; (Church Latin) the world’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
The Church's endless 'in saecula saeculorum' kept this word near its Latin shape everywhere. Secular comes from its sense 'of this world'.
English relatives: secular
Learn it
In a sentence
- esLa iglesia es del siglo XII.
- frL'église date du XIIe siècle.
- itLa chiesa risale al XII secolo.
- ptA igreja é do século XII.
- roBiserica e din secolul al XII-lea.
- caL'església és del segle XII.
- enThe church dates from the twelfth century.