centum: Meaning and Definition of

cen•tum

Pronunciation: (sen'tum), [key]
— n.
  1. one hundred.

cen•tum

Pronunciation: (ken'tum, -toom), [key]
— adj.
  1. belonging to or consisting of those branches of the Indo-European family of languages that show distinctive preservation of the Proto-Indo-European labiovelars and that show a historical development of velar articulations, as the sounds (k) or (kh), from Proto-Indo-European palatal phonemes. The centum branches are Germanic, Celtic, Italic, Hellenic, Anatolian, and Tocharian. Cf. satem.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.