Secolului

Secolului is the genitive singular form of the Romanian noun secol, meaning century or era. It appears in phrases that indicate belonging to or relation with a particular century and is commonly found in historical or scholarly writing.

The word secol derives from the Latin saeculum, which in Latin itself referred to an age or era and gradually came to denote a century in Romanian usage. In Romanian grammar, secol is declined like a masculine noun with a definite article, and the genitive singular is secolului. In phrases that specify a century with an ordinal, the construction typically takes the form secolului al XX-lea, meaning the twentieth century, or din secolul al XIX-lea, meaning from the nineteenth century. The form can also appear in possessive or descriptive contexts, as in istoria secolului al XX-lea (the history of the twentieth century) or documentele din secolului al XVIII-lea (the documents from the eighteenth century).

Usage notes: secolului is not a standalone thematic topic; rather, it is a grammatical form used to connect secol to another element within a larger noun phrase. It is most frequent in historical narratives, bibliographic titles, and academic writing where precise dating is important. Correct usage relies on the broader Romanian construction al XX-lea or al XIX-lea to specify the century, with din or istoria used to indicate relation or origin.

See also: secol, Romanian grammar, centuri and centuries in Romanian historiography.