Sec is from in the time sense, an informal shortening of 'second'; in the wine sense, from French 'sec' ('dry'), from Latin 'siccus' ('dry'). The historical chain includes Latin siccus. Older glosses in the chain include "second", "sec", "dry", and "siccus", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, sec is best read as borrowing, yielding an English noun and adjective shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun and adjective, with the sense "a second of time (informal); of wine, dry". related forms include second and demi-sec. The result is an English noun and adjective whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.