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3 definitions found

From: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Mag·uey n.  Bot. Any of several species of Agave,  such as the century plant (Agave Americana), a plant requiring many years to come to maturity and blossoming only once before dying; and the Agave atrovirens, a Mexican plant used especially for making pulque, the source of the colorless Mexican liquor mescal; and the cantala (Agave cantala), a Philippine plant yielding a hard fibre used in making coarse twine.  See Agave.
 

From: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

 Cen·tu·ry n.; pl. Centuries
 1. A hundred; as, a century of sonnets; an aggregate of a hundred things. [Archaic.]
    And on it said a century of prayers.   --Shak.
 2. A period of a hundred years; as, this event took place over two centuries ago.
 Note:Century, in the reckoning of time, although often used in a general way of any series of hundred consecutive years (as, a century of temperance work), usually signifies a division of the Christian era, consisting of a period of one hundred years ending with the hundredth year from which it is named; as, the first century (a. d. 1-100 inclusive); the seventh century (a.d. 601-700); the eighteenth century (a.d. 1701-1800). With words or phrases connecting it with some other system of chronology it is used of similar division of those eras; as, the first century of Rome (A.U.C.  1-100).
 3. Rom. Antiq. (a) A division of the Roman people formed according to their property, for the purpose of voting for civil officers. (b) One of sixty companies into which a legion of the army was divided. It was Commanded by a centurion.
 Century plant Bot., the Agave Americana, formerly supposed to flower but once in a century; -- hence the name. See Agave.
 The Magdeburg Centuries, an ecclesiastical history of the first thirteen centuries, arranged in thirteen volumes, compiled in the 16th century by Protestant scholars at Magdeburg.
 

From: WordNet (r) 2.0

 century plant
      n : tropical American plants with basal rosettes of fibrous
          sword-shaped leaves and flowers in tall spikes; some
          cultivated for ornament or for fiber [syn: agave, American
          aloe]