variants
or laic
as in irreligious
Related Words
Relevance
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for laical
Adjective
-
And even the irreligious Bill de Blasio would join parishioners at the cathedral.—
New York Daily News Editorial Board,
New York Daily News,
9 Feb. 2026 -
Stewart’s switch from his usual snark to imitate Colbert’s buffoonery proved how spiteful and irreligious political humor has become since the left’s worship of Barack Obama and subsequent persecution of President Trump.—
Armond White,
National Review,
25 July 2025
Adjective
-
Rabbi Andrew Schultz, executive director of the Community Alliance for Jewish Affiliated Cemeteries, said this option does not align with Jewish burial traditions, though many secular Jews inquire about alternate practices.—
Hannah Kliger,
CBS News,
6 Feb. 2026
-
Judging by her writings, Raha belonged to a milieu in Tehran where the arts are a secular religion.—
Arash Azizi,
The Atlantic,
6 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
Yet, even as Aleys’s world begins to change with the rise of lay literacy, those lay people are almost entirely men.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
5 Feb. 2026
-
Both memoirs prepare the lay gambler for a world of gruelling, bruising defeats and unglamorous back-of-the-envelope calculus.—
Dan Piepenbring,
New Yorker,
4 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
Groundhog Day is its pagan echo — a reading of light and shadow, an old way of guessing at spring.—
Ana Gutierrez,
Austin American Statesman,
3 Feb. 2026
-
Over the course of that months-long reporting, a picture has emerged of the radical characters involved with the property, including a notorious neo-Nazi family and a pagan mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter.—
Rob Picheta,
CNN Money,
15 Dec. 2025
Adjective
-
His stories, particularly the later ones, center around the idea that the Universe is a godless cosmos that is entirely indifferent to humanity.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
14 Oct. 2025
-
Predictably, the hubbub surrounding the photo was eventually framed as a war between uptight virgins and godless heathens, with a quieter contingent astounded only by the fact that this kind of marketing could still be so effective.—
Amanda Petrusich,
New Yorker,
2 Sep. 2025
Adjective
-
Elevation Church, the evangelical, nondenominational megachurch led by Pastor Steven Furtick, recently announced its plan to start its own college program in 2026.—
Briah Lumpkins,
Charlotte Observer,
18 Dec. 2025
-
Morris, who founded the nondenominational Gateway Church in Texas, pleaded guilty in October to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but six months suspended.—
Mike Hixenbaugh,
NBC news,
17 Dec. 2025
Adjective
-
Most of the scholars Wiese discusses were rabbis, whether more traditional ones or proponents of radical reform, and this reflects the degree to which secular Jewish Studies, housed in nonsectarian universities, took longer to develop.—
Josh Lambert,
JSTOR Daily,
19 Sep. 2025
-
The Dalai Lama’s nonsectarian vision and unifying presence has helped Tibetans in exile avoid the fate of many diaspora communities that fall apart from internal strife, tribal loyalties, and turf wars.—
Tenzin Dorjee,
Foreign Affairs,
1 Sep. 2025
Adjective
-
What looked like ideological bias was, more often, temporal lag.—
Charles Edward Gehrke,
Fortune,
9 Feb. 2026
-
Again and again, Tennyson fills his beautifully wrought poems with enormous, unfathomable depths—sometimes cosmic, sometimes temporal, sometimes psychological, often oceanic.—
Kathryn Schulz,
New Yorker,
9 Feb. 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Cite this Entry
“Laical.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/laical. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
