Centurions

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An officer in the ancient Roman army responsible for commanding a century, which typically comprised around one hundred soldiers
2. A military leader in the Roman legions, tasked with maintaining discipline and leading troops in battle, usually in charge of a hundred men
3. A rank held in the Roman military, denoting a soldier who commands a century and often serves as a key figure in the hierarchy of the army

Etymology: "Centurions" is the plural of "centurion," and the word's core is a simple count: Latin "centum" means "a hundred," and a "centurio" was the commander of a hundred men. The Roman legion was organized in units of that size, so the title describes the job directly, a leader of a company, not a hundred-man army of its own. English has a native equivalent that lost out. Old English speakers called the same officer a "hundredmann," literally "hundred-man," and that compound survived into Middle English as "hundredman" and "hundreder." The Latin borrowing, arriving in Middle English as "centurioun," displaced both, which is why the native wording is now forgotten while the Roman title stuck.

Synonyms: officers, commanders, leaders, captains, military leaders