century

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsen.tʃər.i/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin centuria (“a group of a hundred; a company of a hundred men”),^[2][3][4] irregularly from centum (“hundred”),^[5][2] formed on the analogy of decuria (“a company of ten”).^[4] Latin centum goes back to Proto-Indo-European *dekm̥ (“ten”), and is related to English hundred.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Roman measure of land: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew;^[2] a division of the Roman army of about a hundred men is from about 1450^[2] (the OED's first quotation is from 1533).^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the late 16th century the word came to mean any group of a hundred things,^[2][6] as in Shakespeare's “a century of prayers” in Cymbeline.^[7][2] Latin centuria was not used of a hundred years, for which saeculum was the word.^[4] The phrase a century of years is from the 1620s (1626),^[4][6] and, shortened, century alone came to mean a period of a hundred years, before 1638^[2] or by the 1650s.^[4] The older general sense survives in cricket, where a century is a score of a hundred runs.^[4][7] In American slang a century was a hundred dollars, from 1859.^[6] The century plant, thought to flower only after a hundred years, is from 1843.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1398 – a measure of land.^[2]
• c. 1450 – a Roman army unit.^[2]
• 1598 – a group of a hundred.^[6]
• 1626 – a century of years.^[6]
• before 1638 – a hundred years.^[2]
• 1843 – century plant.^[4]
• 1859 – a hundred dollars (slang).^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A period of a hundred years.
2. Each of the hundred-year periods counted from the traditional date of the birth of Christ: the 19th century.
3. (cricket) A score of a hundred runs by one batsman.
4. (Roman history) A unit of the Roman army of about a hundred men, commanded by a centurion.
5. (Roman history) One of the 193 voting divisions of the Roman people.

Word family

• centurylong
• centurial
• centuried
• half-century
• century plant

Related words

• centurion
• cent
• centennial
• centenary
• percent
• hundred

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press