Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A period of 100 years.
  • noun Each of the successive periods of 100 years before or since the advent of the Christian era.
  • noun A unit of the Roman army originally consisting of 100 men.
  • noun One of the 193 electoral divisions of the Roman people.
  • noun A group of 100 things.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, a set of dried plants containing a hundred sheets.
  • noun In a general sense, a hundred; anything consisting of a hundred in number.
  • noun Specifically In Rom. antiq.:
  • noun A division of the people (originally so called, probably, with reference to the approximate number of its members, though there was no fixed limit), instituted by Servius Tullius, formed with reference to taxation and to the election of magistrates and enactment of laws.
  • noun A subdivision of the legion, corresponding to a modern military company of infantry, and consisting nominally of a hundred men.
  • noun An allotment of land of varying size; especially, the area of land allotted to soldiers in a conquered country.
  • noun A period of one hundred years, reckoned from any starting-point: as, a century of national independence; a century of oppression.
  • noun An obsolete form of centaury.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Archaic. A hundred; ; an aggregate of a hundred things.
  • noun A period of a hundred years.
  • noun A division of the Roman people formed according to their property, for the purpose of voting for civil officers.
  • noun One of sixty companies into which a legion of the army was divided. It was Commanded by a centurion.
  • noun (Bot.) the Agave Americana, formerly supposed to flower but once in a century; -- hence the name. See Agave.
  • noun an ecclesiastical history of the first thirteen centuries, arranged in thirteen volumes, compiled in the 16th century by Protestant scholars at Magdeburg.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A period of 100 consecutive years; often specifically a numbered period with conventional start and end dates, e.g., the twentieth century, which stretches from (strictly) 1901 through 2000, or (informally) 1900 through 1999. The first century AD was from 1 to 100; a yearhundred.
  • noun A unit in ancient Roman, originally of 100 army soldiers as part of a cohort, later of more varied sizes (but typically containing 60 to 70 or 80) soldiers or other men (guards, police, firemen), commanded by a centurion.
  • noun A political division of ancient Rome, meeting in the Centuriate Assembly.
  • noun archaic A hundred things; a hundred.
  • noun cricket A hundred runs scored either by a single player in one innings, or by two players in a partnership.
  • noun US, cycling A ride 100 miles in length.
  • noun US, informal A banknote in the denomination of one hundred dollars.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a period of 100 years
  • noun ten 10s

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin centuria, a group of a hundred, from centum, hundred; see dekm̥ in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin centuria, from centum ("one hundred").

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Examples

  • _The Theory of Poetry in England; its development in doctrines and ideas from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century_.

    Horace and His Influence Grant Showerman

  • "We shall, for the present, leave Anthony propagating the monastic dispositions, and extending its influence not only into the next century, but for many ages after, and conclude this view of the state of the _third century_, with expressing our regret that the faith and love of the gospel received toward the close of it a dreadful blow from the encouragement of this unchristian practise."

    The Revelation Explained 1913

  • If the ignorant man knows no more respecting any particular art or branch of business than was generally known during the last century, _he belongs to the last century_, and he must consent to be outstripped by those who have the light and knowledge of the present.

    Popular Education For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes Ira Mayhew 1854

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Kings of Lindsey Carla 2010

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Kings of Lindsey Carla 2010

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Kings of Lindsey Carla 2010

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Archive 2010-09-01 Carla 2010

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Kings of Lindsey Carla 2010

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Kings of Lindsey Carla 2010

  • If we assign Beda, Bubba and Biscop to somewhere around the middle two quarters of the seventh century, at and after Paulinus’ activity in Lindsey, then the admittedly inexact method of counting generations would place their immediate predecessor Caedbaed somewhere in the early seventh century*, Winta somewhere in the early sixth century, and the last name in the list somewhere around the mid-eighth century.

    Kings of Lindsey Carla 2010

Comments

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  • Cricket jargon - a score of one hundred runs or more. Over two hundred runs is a double century and so on.

    Fifty runs is a half-century.

    November 30, 2007