Also 4 -ioun, -ien, -yone, centorioun, 6 centurian. [a. F. centurion (12th c. in Littré) or ad. L. centurio, -ōnem, f. centuria CENTURY. The L. centurio is found unchanged in the Wycliffite versions, and other works of 13th–15th c.]
1. The commander of a century in the Roman army.
c. 1275. Passion our Lord, in O. E. Misc., 485. Þet iseyh centurio þat þer bisydes stod.
1382. Wyclif, Acts xxi. 32. Knyȝtis takun to, and centuriouns [1388 centuriens].
c. 1400. Apol. Loll., 2. Corneli centurio, ȝet vncristund, is clensid wiþ þe Hooli Goost.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., lviii. 241 (Harl. MS.). The Emperoure … seide to his centurio, þat he shulde feche that knyȝt.
1525. Tindale, Matt. viii. 5, marg. note. Whom I call sometime a centurion, but for the most part a hunder-captain.
1607. Shaks., Cor., IV. iii. 47. The Centurions … to be on foot at an houres warning.
1838–43. Arnold, Hist. Rome, I. xiii. 223. To seize and execute every centurion whose century had fled.
2. transf. Any officer in command of 100 men.
1382. Wyclif, Deut. i. 15. I haue ordeynd hem princes, and tribunes, and centuriouns, and quynquagenaryes, and denes.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., I. II. (Arb.), 72. He sent forth dyuers other Centurians with their hundrethes.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), II. 24. One of the centurions, or captains of a hundred, is said to strip his other tenants of their best plaids wherewith to clothe his soldiers against a review.
