Spell Bee Word: Century

What does century mean?

Word: Century

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Century means a period of one hundred years. In cricket, a century is a score of one hundred runs by one batter.

Synonyms: hundred years

How do you spell century?

Syllables: cen - tu - ry

Tricky part: The middle is tu, and there is no a after the u: centuary is a common mistake.

Watch out for: centuary, centery, sentury

Memory tip: Cent means a hundred, as in percent, so a century of years and a century of runs both begin with cent.

Century in a sentence

Example 1: The Taj Mahal was built in the seventeenth century.

Example 2: Our team captain has scored many centuries for her club.

Example 3: This banyan tree is said to be more than a century old.

Fun Fact

The years 1901 to 2000 made up the twentieth century, not the nineteenth. The first century ran from year 1 to year 100, so the number is always one ahead of the hundreds.

Practise the CREST Way

Word Cookie

Find the extra letter in the word:

centurry

a) u
b) r
c) y
d) t

Spell-o-Spell

Choose the incorrectly spelt word:

a) calendar
b) history
c) decade
d) centurey

Mingle-Mangle

Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:

tyrucen

a) country
b) century
c) centaur
d) censure

Word Cookie

Find the misspelt word in the sentence:

At the city musium, we saw a steam engine built over a century ago.

a) steam
b) musium
c) century
d) engine

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In which century are we living now?

a) the nineteenth century
b) the twenty-first century
c) the twentieth century
d) the twenty-second century

2. A fort that is two centuries old was built about how many years ago?

a) 20
b) 100
c) 200
d) 2,000