How to Use century in a Sentence

century

noun
Definition of centurynext
  • When the prince got married, it was called the wedding of the century.
  • It took more than a century to complete the cathedral.
  • The pottery dates back to the sixth century B.C.E.
  • The Hartmans work around a small grove of old growth oaks that have seen the change of century.
    — Shelley Jones, Chicago Tribune, 4 Sep. 2022
  • But of the 24 songs touched on, only eight were from the 21st century, with only three from the past decade.
    — Chris Richards, Washington Post, 4 Aug. 2023
  • The roots of this tactic go back more than half a century.
    — Kristen V. Brown, The Atlantic, 26 Sep. 2024
  • Since the silent era, a century’s worth of movies has told us how to love, how to die, how to dress, how to behave.
    — Peter Biskind, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Jan. 2024
  • These maces, which date back to the 17th century, are made of silver gilt over oak.
    — Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 25 Apr. 2023
  • The first one is a Greek Revival century home on Banker’s Row.
    — Alyssa Alfano, cleveland, 27 Nov. 2022
  • For more than half a century, Israel has controlled the borders of the West Bank and Gaza.
    — Benjamin Case, The Conversation, 6 Feb. 2024
  • Lean pork floss and century egg congee is one of the classics served in the south of China.
    — Maggie Hiufu Wong, CNN, 13 Oct. 2022
  • The third piece of this century-old maze is the main space, where a 6-burner stove sits across from a 7-foot work table.
    — Sheryl Julian, BostonGlobe.com, 31 Jan. 2023
  • Covid-19 wasn’t the outlier, a once-in-a-century tragedy.
    — Melody Schreiber, The New Republic, 30 Apr. 2022
  • The film—which take place across Hong Kong and France—is one of the most critically beloved films of the century, if not all time.
    — Hannah Jackson, Vogue, 17 Oct. 2023
  • The Coronation Oath has stood for centuries and is enshrined in law.
    — Town & Country, 7 May 2023
  • One of the greatest living lutenists, North will play Italian pieces with La Morra from the 15th and 16th centuries.
    — Beth Wood, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Dec. 2023
  • Swift is the only act with three albums to spend at least 10 weeks at No. 1 this century.
    — Keith Caulfield, Billboard, 30 June 2024
  • And for centuries, religions have embraced a love to all pets.
    — Matt Keenan, Kansas City Star, 6 Feb. 2024
  • Glia, once thought to be mere glue that fills the space between neurons, were largely ignored in the brain for much of the 20th century.
    — Yasemin Saplakoglu, WIRED, 14 Jan. 2024
  • The 20th century was marked by change and new beginnings.
    — Ian Malone, Vogue, 1 Mar. 2024
  • The OceanPlace center failed to get off to a strong start despite the optimism and turn-of-the-century hoopla.
    — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 July 2022
  • The good news, however, is new plants, called pups, can form at the base to flower in not a century, but about 10 or so years.
    — Tom MacCubbin, Orlando Sentinel, 10 Sep. 2022
  • The wetlands restoration will cover 5.8 acres, the last of what more than a century ago was a 44-acre coastal lagoon.
    — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 June 2023
  • Much later, in the ninth century, a hermit named Pelayo is said to have told Teodomiro about a strange shower of bright stars.
    — Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 Aug. 2024
  • Fuel emissions standards, the likes of which the United States has had for half a century.
    — Michael E. Miller, Washington Post, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Part of the solution is supposed to be housing that’s been in Skid Row for more than a century.
    — Liam Dillon, Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2023
  • The town is a sacred place for Native Hawaiians and was the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom for the first half of the 19th century.
    — Justine McDaniel and Maham Javaid, Anchorage Daily News, 16 Aug. 2023
  • Amid a scorching, once-in-a-century heat wave, a massive landfill in northern parts of the city has been on fire for the past four days.
    — Manavi Kapur, Quartz, 29 Apr. 2022
  • But by the 19th century, German mathematicians had begun to tear things down.
    — Solomon Adams, WIRED, 23 Feb. 2025
  • Before oil, pearls were the Persian Gulf’s main commodity, and during the industry’s heyday in the late 19th century, Muharraq emerged as the region’s pearling center.
    — Chris Schalkx, Travel + Leisure, 23 Feb. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'century.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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