Dictionary

plurisecular en · ADJ

Etymology

From pluri- (“multi-, many”) + secular (“of or related to centuries”), chiefly after French pluriséculaire.

Meanings

1. (literary, rare) Of or related to a span of several centuries, centuries-old.
   • ...it is convenient to take into consideration, on one hand, registration in a program within a plurisecular story of academic mobilities and of the literary imagination linked to the juvenile journey and, on the other hand, the contribution of ERASMUS journeys to a socialisation centered on the meeting of individuals from different European countries. 2013, Vincenzo Cicchelli, “The Cosmopolitan 'Bildung' of Erasmus Students' Going Abroad”, in Critical Perspectives on International Education, page 205:
   • Rather than seeing in [the anonymous author of My Secret Life] a courageous fugitive from a "Victorianism" that would have compelled him to silence, I am inclined to think that, in an epoch dominated by (highly prolix) directives enjoining discretion and modesty, he was the most direct and in a way the most naïve representative of a plurisecular injunction to talk about sex. 1978, Michel Foucault, translated by Robert Hurley, The History of Sexuality, volume I, page 22:
   • M. Charles Rabot, secretary of the French Commission on Glaciers, is the author of a pamphlet entitled "Essai de Chronologie des Variations Glaciaires"... A complete primary oscillation, i.e. an increase and decrease, appears to have a duration of one or two centuries... There seems further to be a plurisecular period covering, in the case of the Alps, about three centuries. 1903 March 26, anonymous author, Nature, volume 67, number 1743, page 495:

Forms

Synonyms

multisecular · secular