Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To pick out one in a hundred of; inflict the punishment of centesimation upon.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
select one person in everyhundred for apunishment
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From centēsimāt-, the perfect passive participial stem of the Latin centēsimō, from centēsimus ("hundredth"); compare tertiate, quintate, sextate, septimate, decimate, duodecimate, and millesimate.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word centesimate.
Examples
-
Elsewhere, we decimate, or even centesimate: here, we are all children of Rhadamanthus.
Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 1 Thomas De Quincey 1822
qms commented on the word centesimate
In my high school Latin class I learned that decimation was a punishment in which one of every ten members of a disgraced legion or other military unit was bludgeoned to death by the other nine. The idea made a deep impression on me. The word seems, however, to be more commonly used to mean "utterly destroy." The common usage has always grated on my ear because the word so loudly proclaims its root in the number ten.
Perhaps the more general application has come about because it sounds so much like "devastate." Something similar could happen to centesimate, which by its sound suggests a sensitivity to pheromones. It could come to describe mating behavior, as in, "I can tell by the tomcats' yowling that a female has been centesimated."
July 6, 2016
qms commented on the word centesimate
A general of Rome grown irate
In heat may incline to decimate,
Or soothed by the touch
Of one he loves much
Relent and benignly centesimate.
July 6, 2016