Century
name, noun, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 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.
"Holonyms: kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond < yottasecond < ronnasecond < quettasecond"
- 2 ten 10s wordnet
- 3 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.
"Holonyms: maniple, cohort, legion"
- 4 a period of 100 years wordnet
- 5 A political division of ancient Rome, meeting in the Centuriate Assembly.
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 A hundred things of the same kind; a hundred.
"'tis the subject of whole books: I might cite a century of authors pro and con."
- 7 A hundred runs scored either by a single player in one innings, or by two players in a partnership.
"He has scored 44 limited-overs centuries."
- 8 A score of one hundred points.
"That was his tenth professional century."
- 9 A race a hundred units (as meters, kilometres, miles) in length.
- 10 A banknote in the denomination of one hundred dollars. US, informal
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"What does it mean to have an educated mind in the 21st century?"
Etymology
From Middle English centurie (“a count of one hundred (of anything); a division of the Roman army; century; a division of land”), from Old French centurie, from Latin centuria, from centum (“one hundred”). The most common modern use is a shortening of century of years.
Related phrases
More for "century"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.