Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A literary work pieced together from the works of several authors.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A patchwork.
- noun Hence In music and literature, a composition made up of selections from the works of various authors or composers; a pasticcio; a medley.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A literary or a musical composition formed by selections from different authors disposed in a new order.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A hotchpotch, a
mixture ; especially a piece made up of quotations from other authors.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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As Mary Carruthers observes, such allegorical games were made possible by a common figural language: A cento is a playful poem that is made up of a pastiche of half-lines and phrases from a canonical poet; it cannot succeed except for an audience who know the original poet as intimately as does the composer of the cento.
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008
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But the higher merit of the cento is to produce one of the most charming books of travel ever written, like Robinson
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The Homeric cento is still extant, and has been repeatedly printed: but the claim of Eudocia to that insipid performance is disputed by the critics.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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So he seeks out a large number of passages in the rest of the Odyssey, and in the Iliad also, which have something in common with passages of this First Book, especially in the matter of words, and easily finds it to be a "cento,"
Homer's Odyssey A Commentary Denton Jaques Snider 1883
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It can be in centro or on the outskirts of town as long as it has secure parking, I do not mind taking a taxi to visit sites such as the Ambar Mueso or other cento sites ...
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Lowebrow: Is it plagiarism, cento, or prose riff? skip to main | skip to sidebar
Is it plagiarism, cento, or prose riff? L. Lee Lowe 2009
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Ausonius [Urbino library, I.V. #498] likens the cento to a Greek bone puzzle called ostomachia.
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008
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Located in a double-wide trailer, los cento de teenoswas gaily decorated with crepe paper and Japanese lanterns, but I — I had already given my heart to Martha Stretz!
My Bossa Nova Years 2010
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Minoranze religiose e diritti: percorsi in cento anni di storia degli ebrei e dei valdesi, 1848 – 1948.
Italy, Modern. 2009
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Non sembra proprio un aeroporto internazionale per una delle citta' principali del mondo - l'aeroporto di Aberdeen e' cento volte meglio!
mr_write commented on the word cento
cento Garment of patches.
December 8, 2007
mascha commented on the word cento
fragments of writing
May 16, 2009