CENTURY • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Century

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/sˈɛntʃəri/ Listen

noun

Century n. (pl. centuries)

1.

A hundred; as, a century of sonnets; an aggregate of a hundred things. (Archaic.) "And on it said a century of prayers."

2.

A period of a hundred years; as, this event took place over two centuries ago. Note: Century, in the reckoning of time, although often used in a general way of any series of hundred consecutive years (as, a century of temperance work), usually signifies a division of the Christian era, consisting of a period of one hundred years ending with the hundredth year from which it is named; as, the first century (a. d. 1-100 inclusive); the seventh century (a.d. 601-700); the eighteenth century (a.d. 1701-1800). With words or phrases connecting it with some other system of chronology it is used of similar division of those eras; as, the first century of Rome (A.U.C. 1-100).

3.

(Rom. Antiq.)

(a)

A division of the Roman people formed according to their property, for the purpose of voting for civil officers.

(b)

One of sixty companies into which a legion of the army was divided. It was Commanded by a centurion.

Century plant (Bot.), the Agave Americana, formerly supposed to flower but once in a century; hence the name. See Agave.

The Magdeburg Centuries, an ecclesiastical history of the first thirteen centuries, arranged in thirteen volumes, compiled in the 16th century by Protestant scholars at Magdeburg.

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Etymology of 'Century'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Century" Quotes from Famous Books

... As a committee man, he was incomparable. No one could be better equipped for the direction of the Treasury Department than he, but he was not satisfied with direction; he would manage also; and he went to the work with untiring energy. A quarter of a century later he said of it, in a letter to his son, "To fill that office in the manner I did, and as it ought to be filled, is a most laborious task and labor of the most tedious kind. To fit myself for it, to be able to understand ...

— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... great artists have been men of this Stone Age— quality men who dared. Michelangelo was the pure type: Titian who lived a century (lacking one year) was another. Leonardo was the same fine savage (who in some miraculous way also possessed the grace of a courtier). Franz Hals, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Botticelli were all men of fierce appetites and heroic physiques. They had animality ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... in the middle of the eighteenth century, when Scio was at the height of her glory and prosperity, when the people were wealthy and happy, and all was delight and pleasure-it was at such a time that a small vessel might have been seen at a short distance from her ...

— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... Marques de los Balbazez, one of the most distinguished generals of the seventeenth century, was the descendant of an illustrious family of Geneva, whose branches spread alike over Italy and Spain. He was born in 1569, and first bore arms in Flanders. In 1604, being in command of the army, he took ...

— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... deemed sufficient to compare a work, produced under such disadvantages, in the seventeenth century, (notwithstanding the extraordinary powers of its author) with what is now becoming the admiration of the nineteenth. Much less, sir, will it be just or candid to suppose me capable of publishing my feeble attempt with any view of comparison ...

— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

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