a general sense, anything divided into or consisting of an hundred parts.

The Roman people, when they were assembled for the electing of magistrates, enacting of laws, or deliberating upon any public affair, were always divided into centuries, and voted by centuries, in order that their suffrages might be the more easily collected; whence these assemblies were called comitia centuriata. The Roman cohorts were also divided into centuries. See Centurion and Cohort.

chronology, the space of one hundred years.

This method of computing by centuries is generally observed in church history, commencing from the time of our Saviour's incarnation; in which sense we lay the first century, the second century, &c.

Centuries of Magdeburg, a famous ecclesiastical history, ranged into thirteen centuries, carried down to the year 1298, compiled by several hundred Protestants of Magdeburg, the chief of whom was Matthias Flacius Illyricus.

Centussis, in Roman antiquity, a coin containing an hundred asses.