It’s interesting to note that a third variation also exists: centennium has occasionally been used to mean both “a period of 100 years” just as millennium means “a period of 1000 years,” and “a 100th anniversary,” but its use is so rare that it is only included in the historical Oxford English Dictionary. Similarly, centenary was used to mean “the governor of a county hundred,” because hundred was used to mean and “a subdivision of some English and American counties.”Ĭentennial dates only to the 18th century, and was formed from the Latin word for “one hundred,” centum, with the -ennial suffix derived from the Latin annus meaning “year” and also seen in words such as biennial, millennial, and perennial. It was used to mean “an officer in command of a group of 100 soldiers,” because century could mean “a group of 100 Roman soldiers.” In this use, centenary was a synonym of the more familiar centurion. Other uses of centenary referred to specific administrative positions. The English word has had several meanings, including “a weight of 100 pounds” (a meaning that is now obsolete) and “a period of 100 years” (a synonym of century that is also obsolete in modern English). They ultimately derive from the Latin word centum meaning “hundred,” but they took different paths into English.Ĭentenary is the older word in English, having derived directly from the Latin word centenarium in the 15th century. There are also pairs of words that evolved in slightly different directions from a shared root, such as perspicacious which means “perceptive” and perspicuous which means “clear, easy to understand,” two variations on the meaning of their Latin ancestor perspicere, which had the meaning “to see through.”Ī synonymous pair that derives from the same ancient source without a difference in meaning is a bit more uncommon, but that’s exactly (and fairly obviously) what we find with centenary and centennial, words that mean “a 100th anniversary or its celebration.” Both words can be used as adjectives as well as nouns. 'Centenary' is more popular in British English, while 'centennial' is preferred in the United States.
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