secular arm

Meanings

1. The lay or temporal authority of a secular court to pronounce punishment (particularly capital punishment) of an offender tried by an ecclesiastical court.

Etymology

From Late Middle English seculer arm, seculer arme (“civil authority or power”), a calque of Medieval Latin bracchium saeculāre (“(figurative) civil or lay power”), from Latin bracchium (“arm”) + saeculāre (neuter singular form of saeculāris (“profane, temporal, worldly”)).