Also 6–7 -ie. [a. F. centurie or ad. L. centuria, an assemblage or division of one hundred things, a company of 100 men, one of the 193 orders into which Servius Tullius divided the Roman people.]
1. Rom. Hist. A division of the Roman army, constituting half of a maniple, and probably consisting originally of 100 men; but in historical times the number appears to have varied according to the size and subdivision of the legion.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, I. (1822), 24. The first centurie of thir horsmen war namit Ramnenses, fra Romulus.
1600. Holland, Livy, I. xiii. 11. Three centuries of gentlemen or knights.
1607. Shaks., Cor., I. vii. 3. If I do send, dispatch Those Centuries to our ayd.
1613. T. Godwin, Exp. Rom. Antiq. (1658), 257. Every cohors containing 3 maniples, every maniple two centuries, every century an hundred soldiers.
1838–43. Arnold, Hist. Rome, I. i. 25. The thirty centuries which made up the legion.
1850. Merivale, Rom. Emp., II. xv. 199. The whole body of the legionaries, century by century.
b. transf. Any body of 100 men or soldiers.
1612–5. Hall, Contempl. O. T., XIX. i. As many centuries of Syrians, as Israel had single souldiers.
1839. De Quincey, Casuistry, Wks. VIII. 267. Forty-two centuries of armed men … firing from windows, must have made prodigious havoc.
2. Hist. One of the 193 political divisions of the Roman people instituted by Servius Tullius, by which they voted in the comitia centuriata.
1604. Edmonds, Observ. Cesar’s Comm., II. 3. The people being deuided first into their Tribes, and then into their classes and centuries.
1631. Heywood, London’s Jus. Hon., Ded. They [Censors] set a rate vpon euery mans estate: registring their names, and placing them in a fit century.
1850. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), IV. xxxii. 4. Assembled in their centuries, the Roman citizens appointed to all the higher magistracies of the republic.
transf. 1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 647. None could ever fail in distinguishing the classes [the good and the wicked], however they might mistake in the particular centuries under each.
3. A group of a hundred things; a hundred. arch.
1598. J. Dickenson, Greene in Conc. (1878), 104. A Centurie of sowltyring passions.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., IV. ii. 391. When with wild wood-leaues and weeds I ha’ strew’d his graue And on it said a Century of prayers.
1672. Manley, Cowel’s Interpr., Pref. Some Centuries of words therein totally omitted.
1737–40. H. Carey (title), The Musical Century in One Hundred English Ballads.
1855. Browning, One Word More. Rafael made a century of sonnets.
1867. Boyd, Oakw. Old, III. Printing centuries of copies, In the usual pamphlet-form.
b. A hundred ‘points’ in the score of a game.
1884. York Herald, 23 Aug., 7/5. At 4.15 the third century was reached, Pullen having made exactly half the number.
1884. St. James’s Gaz., 29 May, 5/2. Mr. W. G. Grace and Barnes each scored upwards of a century in the same innings.
4. A period of 100 years; originally expressed in full a ‘century of years.’
1626. W. Sclater, Expos. 2 Thess. (1629), 109. In as few centuries of yeeres after the floud.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), II. 6. About the latter end of the last century of yeers.
1662. Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., III. iv. § 9. 556. By that proportion, in few Generations, it would amount to many thousands within a Century.
1663. Boyle, Some Motives Love of God, 150 (J.). Though our Joys, after some Centuries of Years, may seem to have grown Elder.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., I. Introd. 19. One intire Century would be too short a Time to learn them all.
1849–50. Alison, Hist. Europe, I. i. § 71. 115. Not years, but centuries must elapse during the apprenticeship to liberty.
5. Each of the successive periods of 100 years, reckoning from a received chronological epoch, esp. from the assumed date of the birth of Christ: thus the hundred years from that date to the year A.D. 100. were the first century of the Christian Era; those from 1801 to 1900 inclusive are the nineteenth century.
a. 1638. Mede, Wks. (1672), II. i. 323 (R.). Through every one of the first three Centuries.
1650. S. Clarke, Marrow Eccl. Hist., Ep. Chr. Rdr. (1654), a 3. Here [the Learned, etc.] shall see in what Centuries, Ages and places the famousest Lights of the Church, both Antient and Modern, have flourished.
1771. Junius’ Lett., liv. 284. The rebellion in the last century.
1780. Harris, Philol. Enq. (1841), 471. Soon after the end of the sixth century, Latin ceased to be spoken at Rome.
1846. Knight, Pass. Working Life, I. § 1. 18. The learned had settled, after a vast deal of popular controversy, that the century had its beginning on the 1st of January, 1801, and not on the 1st of January, 1800.
1852. Tennyson, Ode Wellington, 142. Thro’ the centuries let a people’s voice … Attest their great commander’s claim.
1871. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 4. Voltairism may stand for the name of the Renaissance of the eighteenth century.
† 6. A ‘hundred,’ as a division of a county. rare.
1611. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit., ii. (1614), 3/2. Elfred … ordained Centuries, which they terme Hundreds.
† 7. A hundred in numeration; one of the figures expressing ‘the hundreds.’ Obs.
1773. Horsley, in Phil. Trans., LXIV. 299. Collect the corrections for the units, decades, and centuries of fathom in the approximate height.
8. pl. The Church History of the CENTURIATORS of Magdeburg, divided into centuries.
1606. Earl Northampton, in True & Perf. Relation, Vv iij b. The judgement of the Centuries in this circumstance concerning Childericke.
9. Comb. as century-plant, the AGAVE or American Aloe; century-writer = CENTURIATOR; century-clock, century-circled adj.
1626. W. Sclater, Expos. 2 Thess. (1629), 202. In euery age inclinations of doctrine are wel obserued by the century-writers.
1637. Gillespie, Eng.-Pop. Cerem., III. iv. 79. The Centurie-writers make out of Dionysius … his Epistle … that the Custome of the Church of Alexandria … was [etc.].
1684. Baxter, Cath. Communion, 36. Noted Divines and Century Writers.
1846. Whittier, Ship-builders, iii. The century-circled oak.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., xii. 255. Not know that the century-clock had struck seventy instead of twenty.
1884. Constance Fenimore Woolson, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 193/2. The great gray-blue swords of the century-plant.
Hence centuryism, as in nineteenth-centuryism, a characteristic of the 19th century.
1882. Athenæum, No. 2836. 277. The vapid eighteenth centuryisms of Le Bailly.
