a. (sb.) [f. (after biennial, etc.) on L. type *centennium (f. centum a hundred + annus year) + -AL.]
Of or relating to a space of one hundred years, or to its completion; of a hundred years’ standing; a hundred years old; completing a hundred years; of or relating to the hundredth anniversary. Centennial State (U.S.): appellation of Colorado, admitted as a state in the centennial year of the existence of the United States (1876).
a. 1797. Mason, Palinodia, x. Wks. 1811, 80 (R.). To her alone I rais’d my strain, On her centennial day.
1816. Monthly Rev., LXXX. 304. The deciduous willow, and the centennial oak.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. I. ii. The blossom is so brief; as of some centennial cactus-flower, which after a century of waiting shines out for hours.
1872. Longf., Div. Trag., III. iv. This ancient olive-tree, that spreads its broad centennial branches.
1874. Motley, Barneveld, II. xiii. 104. With a centennial hatred of Spain.
1881. Geikie, in Macm. Mag., XLIV. 233. (Wyoming) But for the protrusion of this wedge the ‘Centennial State’ would have been a quiet pastoral or agricultural territory.
1882. Hinsdale, Garfield & Educ., II. 411. That I would meet her in the Centennial summer.
B. as sb. A hundredth anniversary or its celebration; a centenary.
1876. W. D. Howells, in Atlantic Monthly, July, 92/1. The Centennial is what every one calls the great fair now open at Philadelphia.
1876. Daily News, Nov., 5/2. America has been of late very much centennialised—that is the word in use now since the great celebration of this year…. Centennials have been got up all over the States.
Hence Centennialize v. nonce-wd.: see prec.
