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It comes from the Latin saeculum which is a period of time longer than a person's life. Rome used to hold the secular games, which was an event so big, it'd never be seen again in a person's lifetime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Games

1250-1300; < Medieval Latin sēculāris, Late Latin saeculāris worldly, temporal (opposed to eternal), Latin: of an age, equivalent to Latin saecul (um) long period of time + -āris -ar1; replacing Middle English seculer < Old French < Latin, as above

In fact: century in Italian is "secolo"... :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum

A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a human population. The word has evolved within Romance languages (and Swedish) to mean "century".

> The word has evolved within Romance languages (and Swedish) to mean "century".

Doesn't that come from centum (100) like cent and centurion?

That's for Germanic languages. In Romance languages the words for century look like "seculo", "siglo", &c.

What they meant is that in Romance languages century is a cognate of secular: secolo in Italian, siècle in French, siglo in Spanish…

And secol in Romanian ^_^