Century or sentry?
century is a noun meaning “A period of one hundred consecutive years; often specifically a numbered period…”; sentry is a noun meaning “A guard, particularly on duty at the entrance to a military base”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) century is about 87 times as common as sentry.
What is the difference between century and sentry?
| century | sentry | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | A period of one hundred consecutive years; often specifically a numbered period with conventional start and end dates, e.g., the twentieth century, which… A unit in ancient Roman army, originally of one hundred army soldiers as part of a cohort, later of more varied sizes (but typically containing sixty to… | A guard, particularly on duty at the entrance to a military base Sentry duty; time spent being a sentry |
| Example | Holonyms: kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond… | none recorded |
| Forms | centuries | sentries |
| Pronunciation | /ˈsɛn.t͡ʃʊɹ.i/ /ˈsɛnt͡ʃ.ɹi/ /ˈsɛn.(t)ʃ(ə.)ɹi/ | /ˈsɛn.tɹi/ [ˈsɛn.tɹ̝̊ɪi̯] ~ [ˈsɛn.t̠ɹ̠̊˔ɪi̯] /ˈsɪn.tɹi/ |
| In writing | 105 times per million words | 1.2 times per million words |
Sources: century and sentry in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of century and sentry
century
- 1
A period of one hundred consecutive years; often specifically a numbered period with conventional start and end dates, e.g., the twentieth century, which stretches from (strictly) 1901 through 2000…
Holonyms: kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond < yottasecond < ronnasecond <…
- 2
A unit in ancient Roman army, originally of one hundred army soldiers as part of a cohort, later of more varied sizes (but typically containing sixty to seventy or eighty) soldiers or other men…
Holonyms: maniple, cohort, legion
- 3
A political division of ancient Rome, meeting in the Centuriate Assembly
- 4
A hundred things of the same kind; a hundred
- 5
A hundred runs scored either by a single player in one innings, or by two players in a partnership
He has scored 44 limited-overs centuries
- 6
A score of one hundred points
That was his tenth professional century
- 7
A race a hundred units (as meters, kilometres, miles) in length
- 8
USinformalA banknote in the denomination of one hundred dollars
sentry
- 1
A guard, particularly on duty at the entrance to a military base
- 2
Sentry duty; time spent being a sentry
- 3
A form of drag to be towed underwater, which on striking bottom is upset and rises to the surface
- 4
A watchtower
- 5
An animal like a marmot tasked with alerting the pack to danger
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, century or sentry?
century appears 105 times per million words; sentry 1.2 times per million words.
century 105 times per million wordssentry 1.2 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).