DictionaryAI

centum

SayKEN-tuhm/ˈkɛntəm/
As a nounSEN-tuhm

Noun pluralcentums

3 meanings of centum

Practice

  1. 1
    language groupadjective
    Describing an Indo-European language in which the Proto-Indo-European palatovelar stops merged with the plain velars rather than becoming sibilants.

    Linguists describe Latin and Greek as centum languages.

    The centum branches kept the palatovelars as plain k-sounds.

    Oppositesatem

    Note

    A label taken from the word itself: Latin centum, "hundred", keeps its opening k-sound where Avestan satəm has an s, so the two words name the two groups. English hundred is a doublet from the same source. The term is not comparable: no language is "more centum" than another. The word usually travels in that pair, as when Johanna Nichols (1998) sets centum languages ahead of satem ones along each westward trajectory.

  2. 2
    perfect scorenounIndiacountable
    A perfect score of 100 out of 100 in a subject, especially in a school board examination.

    He celebrated a centum after months of grueling review.

    Only two students in the whole district scored a centum in physics this year.

    UsageYou score or get a centum in a subject, as in a centum in physics.

    Note

    This is Indian English, and the arithmetic explains it: in exams graded out of a hundred, full marks is literally "a hundred."

    She scored a centum in physics this year.

    He secured a centum in mathematics but struggled in English.

Less common meaning

  1. 3
    nounSouth Asia
    A set of one hundred verses connected by a shared meter or common topic, known in Sanskrit as a satakam.
    Tonda-mandala-sātacam, a centum of verses on the Conjeveram country, No. 148, C. M. 73. The sātacam is a poem of one hundred stanzas, in its appropriate metre.
    1847, William Taylor, Madras Journal of Literature and Science

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of centum apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meaning 1

Centum, hundred, and satem are doublets. Centum is a learned word taken from Latin centum, meaning "hundred," and English records of it go back at least to the 1890s. Linguists use it as a textbook case of a word that held on to an original velar stop, unlike Avestan satəm.

Meaning 2

A calque of Sanskrit "śataka" ("a hundred; a satakam"). The sense of a perfect exam score is explained by 100-point academic grading in India.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

  • The literary sense of centum is a calque of Sanskrit śataka. en.wiktionary.org
  • Sanskrit śataka means a hundred or a collection of a hundred stanzas. en.wiktionary.org
  • The literary meaning existed by 1991. en.wiktionary.org
  • This conflates two senses. A satakam is a collection of a hundred verses; grading explains the separate sense of a perfect examination score. en.wiktionary.org
  • Indian academic grading includes scores out of 100. en.wikipedia.org