microcentury
Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word microcentury. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word microcentury, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say microcentury in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word microcentury you have here. The definition of the word microcentury will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofmicrocentury, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From micro- (“1 millionth”) + century (“100 years”).
Noun
microcentury (plural microcenturies)
- (humorous) A unit of time equal to one millionth of a century or approximately one hour (52 minutes and 35.8 seconds).
- 1997, Gian-Carlo Rota, “Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught”, in Indiscrete Thoughts, Springer Science & Business Media, published 2008, →ISBN, page 197:
- After fifty minutes (one microcentury as von Neumann used to say) everybody's attention will turn elsewhere even if we are trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis.
- 2014, Christoph Schiller, Motion Mountain, edition 27.06, volume IV, page 204:
- Translate: I was caught in such a traffic jam that I needed a microcentury for a picoparsec and that my car’s fuel consumption was two tenths of a square millimetre.
Usage notes
The microcentury is not a formal unit of measurement and is chiefly used for humorous hyperbole emphasizing the subjective feeling of an hour having taken an eternity, as during a boring lecture.
