Centenarius

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who has reached the age of one hundred years, typically celebrated for longevity and life experiences
2. Relating to or living during the span of a century, often used in historical or demographic contexts
3. Pertaining to the unit of measurement that signifies a hundred, especially in relation to age or time

Etymology: Centenarius is a Latin adjective meaning "consisting of a hundred" or "containing a hundred," formed from "centum," the Latin word for one hundred, plus the suffix "-arius," which marks belonging to or relating to something. The noun use, "a person aged one hundred," grew out of that adjective. In English the word is a modern borrowing rather than an ancient one: it appears in English in the sense of a person who has reached one hundred years, and it sits within a family of related words such as "centenary," meaning a hundredth anniversary, and "century," a group of one hundred years. The Latin root "centum" is also the source of "cent" and "percent," which share the same idea of one hundred parts. Centenarius therefore carries a simple, counting-based logic: it names a person defined entirely by the number of years they have lived, in the same way that a centenary marks a hundred years since some event.

Synonyms: centurion