Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to a 100-year period.
  • adjective Occurring once every 100 years.
  • noun A 100-year period.
  • noun A centennial.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Relating to or consisting of a hundred; relating to a period of a hundred years; recurring once in every hundred years: as, a centenary festival or celebration.
  • noun pl. centenaries (-riz).
  • noun The space of a hundred years.
  • noun What I call by this name has grown up in the last centenary — a word I may use to signify the hundred years now ending. De Morgan, in Correspondent of Oct. 28, 1865.
  • noun The commemoration or celebration of the hundredth anniversary of any event, as the birth of a great man: as, the centenary of Burns; the centenary of the Constitution of the United States.
  • noun A centenarian.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Relating to, or consisting of, a hundred.
  • adjective Occurring once in every hundred years; centennial.
  • noun The aggregate of a hundred single things; specifically, a century.
  • noun A commemoration or celebration of an event which occurred a hundred years before.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, or completing a period of 100 years.
  • noun A one hundredth anniversary

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to or completing a period of 100 years
  • noun the 100th anniversary (or the celebration of it)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin centēnārius, of a hundred, from centum, hundred; see dekm̥ in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Attested since about 1790, from Late Latin centenarius ("of one hundred"), from Latin centeni ("one hundred each") (from centum ("hundred")) + -arius.

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