centesimus

Forms

centēsimus (feminine centēsima, neuter centēsimum); first/second-declension numeral^[1] The spelling centēnsimus also occurs.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is the ordinal of centum (“hundred”), analysed as from Latin centum + -ēsimus.^[2][3][1] De Vaan explains it as a remaking of an older ⟨*cēsimus⟩, from Proto-Italic *kent-tamo-, on the model of vīcēsimus (“twentieth”) and the other ordinals.^[4][1] He traces centum to Proto-Italic *kntom and Proto-Indo-European *dḱmtom (“hundred”), cognate with Sanskrit शत (śatá-), Ancient Greek ἑκατόν (hekatón) and Lithuanian šim̃tas.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short and Köbler find it first in Plautus, who has pars centēsima “a hundredth part” in the Miles gloriosus.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Cicero uses it of the hundredth day since the death of Clodius.^[2][5] Varro and Pliny the Elder use it of a hundredfold crop, standing for centuplex.^[5][2] As a noun, centēsima is a hundredth part, as a tax of one per cent on goods sold in Tacitus, and above all interest of one per cent a month, twelve per cent a year, in Cicero's letters.^[5] The spelling ⟨centensimus⟩ is found in inscriptions such as the acts of Augustus' Secular Games and in Diocletian's price edict.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a hundredth part.^[5][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the hundredth day and of monthly interest.^[2][5][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of a hundredfold yield.^[5][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of the one per cent sales tax.^[5][6]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Hundredth in order.^[2][5][1][7]
2. Forming a hundredth part.^[2][5]
3. Of a crop, a hundredfold.^[2][5]
4. centēsima (feminine as noun): a hundredth part; a one per cent tax; interest of one per cent a month.^[5]

Word family

• centēsima
• centēsimō

Related words

• centum
• vīcēsimus
• centuplex

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson