Word.ws English Dictionary

centesimation

UK/ˌsɛntiːsɪˈmeɪʃən/

centesimation noun: the selection by lot of every hundredth man (of an army or group of prisoners or mutineers) for execution.

Noun

centesimation (countable and uncountable, plural centesimations)

  1. (rare) The selection by lot of every hundredth man (of an army or group of prisoners or mutineers) for execution.
    • CENTESIMATION, a milder kind of military puniſhment, in caſes of deſertion, mutiny, and the like, when only every hundredth man is executed.1763, A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, second edition, page 522
    • Sometimes the criminals were decimated by lot, as appears in Polybius, Tacitus, Plutarch, Appian, Dio, Julius Capitolinus, who also mentions a centesimation.page 413

Examples of centesimation in a sentence

  • Centesimation…carries only one-tenth the sensation value of “decimation”.1980, Stephen Spender, Irving Kristol, editors, Encounter, LIV, page 71:
  • Decimate, to select by lot and put to death every tenth man of (a captured army or body of prisoners or mutineers) […] Compare 1/100: centesimation.1992, Laurence Urdang, Three Toed Sloths and Seven League Boots, page 151:

Forms of centesimation

pluralcentesimations

Origin of centesimation

From the Latin centēsimātiō, from centēsimō, from centēsimus (“hundredth”); compare quintation, septimation, decimation, vicesimation, and tricesimation.

Questions about centesimation

What does centesimation mean?
Centesimation means the selection by lot of every hundredth man (of an army or group of prisoners or mutineers) for execution.
How do you use centesimation in a sentence?
Centesimation…carries only one-tenth the sensation value of “decimation”.
What part of speech is centesimation?
Centesimation is a noun.
How do you pronounce centesimation?
Centesimation is pronounced /ˌsɛntiːsɪˈmeɪʃən/ (UK).
What is the plural of centesimation?
The plural of centesimation is centesimations.

Words near centesimation in the dictionary

  1. centesimally
  2. centesimate
  3. centesimated
  4. centesimates
  5. centesimating
  6. centesimation
  7. centesimations
  8. centesimi
  9. centesimo
  10. centesimos
  11. centesis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: centesimation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “centesimation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/centesimation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.