centenus

From centum (“hundred”) +‎ -(ē)nus (suffix forming adjectives and distributive numerals).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kɛnˈteː.nʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [t͡ʃen̪ˈt̪ɛː.nus]

centēnus (feminine centēna, neuter centēnum); first/second-declension numeral

1. (chiefly plural) one hundred each
   • 23 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Natural History 19.11.8:

     Sed Cumanae plagae concidunt apro saetas et vel ferri aciem vincunt, vidimusque iam tantae tenuitatis ut anulum hominis cum epidromis transirent, uno portante multitudinem qua saltus cingeretur. Nec id maxume mirum, sed singula earum stamina centeno quinquageno filo constare, sicut paulo ante Fulvio Lupo qui in praefectura Aegypti obiit.

     • 1950 translation by H. Rackham

       But the Cumae nets will cut the bristles of a boar and even turn the edge of a steel knife; and we have seen before now netting of such fine texture that it could be passed through a man’s ring, with running tackle and all, a single person carrying an amount of net sufficient to encircle a wood! Nor is this the most remarkable thing about it, but the fact that each string of these nettings consists of 150 threads, as recently made for Fulvius Lupus who died in the office of governor of Egypt.

2. (chiefly poetic, in the singular, with a collective noun) one hundred (collectively); a hundredfold
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 10.207–208:

     It gravis Aulestes, centenaque arbore fluctum
     verberat assurgens; […]

     There goes sullen Aulestes, one hundred rows strong, crushing the waves in his wake; […]

   • c. 62 CE, Persius, Saturae 5.6:

     quorsum haec? aut quantas robusti carminis offas / ingeris, ut par sit centeno gutture niti?

     • 2004 translation by Susanna Morton Braund

       Where’s all this leading? What enormous lumps of solid song are you heaping up that they need a hundredfold throat to labour over?

This is part of the Latin series of distributive numerals. These numerals are inflected as first/second-declension adjectives; in Classical Latin, they typically accompany plural nouns (with which they agree in case and gender) and have the following functions:

• to express the sense “[numeral] [noun]s each/apiece”, as in hominis digiti ternos articulos habent, “a man’s fingers have three joints each” (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 11.244.3).

• to express multiplication after a numeral adverb,^[1] as in Gallinaciis enim pullis bis deni dies opus sunt, pavoninis ter noveni "hens' [eggs] need twice ten days, peahens' thrice nine" (Marcus Terentius Varro, Res Rusticae 3.9.10)

• to express the sense of cardinal numerals when used with pluralia tantum (plural-only nouns) such as castra "camp":^[1] for example, "twelve camps" is expressed by duodēna castra (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.105.5). Distributive forms are regularly used in this context for the number 2 and for all numbers greater than 4. For 1, plural-only nouns are used with plural inflected forms of the cardinal ūnus (“one”), as in ūnae scālae "one flight of stairs" (rather than with forms of the distributive numeral singulus). For 3 and 4, plural-only nouns are used with the plural inflected forms of trīnus^[2] and quadrīnus, as in trīna castra "three camps" (rather than with forms of ternus and quaternus, which tend to be used in distributive function^[3]).

These adjectives do not normally occur in the singular.^[4] However, some singular forms are attested in Classical Latin poetry,^[1] possibly motivated by metrical considerations (e.g. corpore bīnō "twofold body" in Lucretius De Rerum Natura 5.879, and bīnus ... honor "double/twofold honor" in Ovid Epistulae ex Ponto 4.9.64). Singular forms are also attested in postclassical Latin, where these adjectives sometimes have non-distributive meanings (taking an ordinal, cardinal, or collective sense instead). These alternative senses are sometimes continued by Romance descendants (e.g. Spanish noveno (“ninth”) from Latin novēnus).

The genitive plural of singulus is usually singulōrum/singulārum, but distributive numerals greater than one commonly use short genitive plural forms ending in -um rather than the longer forms ending in -ōrum and -ārum.^[4][2]

First/second-declension adjective (distributive, normally plural-only; short genitive plurals in -num preferred).

• Old Galician-Portuguese: centẽo
  • Galician: centeo
  • Portuguese: centeio
• Spanish: centeno

• “centeni”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “centenus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• centenus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, & R. K. Ashdowne, editors (1975–2013), “centenus”, in Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources‎^[1], London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, →ISBN, →OCLC