Centennial

How to spell centennial

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce centennial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does centennial mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or marking a hundredth anniversary.
2. nounA hundredth anniversary, or a celebration marking it.

Centennial in a sentence

• adjective

  The museum planned a centennial exhibition to mark its first hundred years.

• noun

  The university celebrated its centennial with a year of public lectures.

• adjective

  The town printed centennial banners for the founding date one century earlier.

• noun

  Organisers spent two years planning the company centennial.

Where does centennial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from two Latin pieces: centum, meaning 'hundred', and annus, meaning 'year', joined by the connecting form that gives English -ennial. It was modelled on the older word 'biennial' (every two years), simply swapping in the root for a hundred. The coinage is American in flavour and dates to the late eighteenth century, with the noun for a hundredth anniversary spreading widely around the United States Centennial of 1876. The same annus root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'annual', 'anniversary' and 'perennial', while centum survives in 'century' and 'percent'. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the double n comes from annus, while the single c and the -ial ending trip up writers who expect a tidier pattern.

How the word is built

• cent- (from Latin centum: hundred)
• -enn- (from annus: year)
• -ial (adjective/noun suffix)