century
A period of one hundred 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.
Other meanings
A unit in ancient Roman army, originally of one hundred army soldiers as part of a cohort, later of more varied sizes (but typically containing sixty to seventy or eighty) soldiers or other men (guards, police, firemen), commanded by a centurion.
A political division of ancient Rome, meeting in the centuriate Assembly.
Related words
- American Century
- centurial
- centuries-long
- centuryful
- centurylong
- microcentury
- midcentury
- nanocentury
- semicentury
- uncentury
- centuried
- mid-century modern
Example sentences
Word history
From Latin "centuria".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “century” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.