Cento

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A hotchpotch, a mixture; especially a piece made up of quotations from other authors, or a poem containing individual lines from other poems.

    "But, Sʳ, I will no longer tire your patience wᵗʰ these monsters (the subject of every contemptuous pamphlet) then with the madness of the Anabaptists, Quakers, Fift Monarchy-men, and a cento of unheard of heresies besides, which, at present, deform the once renowned Church of England, and approach so little to the pretended Reformation, which we in France have been made to believe, that there is nothing more heavenly wide."

Example

More examples

"But, Sʳ, I will no longer tire your patience wᵗʰ these monsters (the subject of every contemptuous pamphlet) then with the madness of the Anabaptists, Quakers, Fift Monarchy-men, and a cento of unheard of heresies besides, which, at present, deform the once renowned Church of England, and approach so little to the pretended Reformation, which we in France have been made to believe, that there is nothing more heavenly wide."

Etymology

From Latin cento (“patchwork garment”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.