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n.1. a cardinal number, ten times ten.2. a symbol for this number, as 100 or C.3. a set of this many persons or things: a hundred of the men.4. hundreds, a number between 100 and 999, as in referring to an amount of money: Property loss was only in the hundreds of dollars.5. Informal.a. a hundred-dollar bill.b. the sum of one hundred dollars.7. a similar division in colonial Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, and in present-day Delaware.a. (in a mixed number) the position of the third digit to the left of the decimal point.b. (in a whole number) the position of the third digit from the right.adj.9. amounting to one hundred in number.[bef. 950; ME, OE (c. OFris hundred, OS hundred, ON hundrath, D honderd, G hundert), equiv. to hund 100 (c. Goth hund; akin to L centum, Gk hekatón, Avestan satam, Skt satám, OCS suto, Lith šímtas) + -red tale, count, akin to Goth rathjan to reckon (see READ1)]
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(as used in expressions)Four Hundred Council of theHundred Years' War* * *
▪ English governmentunit of English local government and taxation, intermediate between village and shire, which survived into the 19th century. Originally, the term probably referred to a group of 100 hides (units of land required to support one peasant family). In the areas of Danish settlement these units were usually called wapentakes, and in the extreme northern counties of England, wards. The term hundred first appears in the laws of King Edmund I (939–946), but an anonymous Ordinance of the Hundred (issued before 975) indicates that the hundred was already a long-established institution. The hundred had a court in which private disputes and criminal matters were settled by customary law. The court met once a month, generally in the open air, at a time and place known to everyone. Originally, all dwellers within the hundred were expected to attend, but gradually suit of court (attendance) became restricted to the tenants of specific land. The suitors normally acted as the judges, but the sheriff was judge on the two annual visits (his “tourn”) he made to each hundred court. Increasingly, hundred courts fell into the hands of private lords. In medieval times the hundred was collectively responsible for various crimes committed within its borders if the offender were not produced. These responsibilities were extinguished by statute in the 19th century, and any reasons for maintaining or remembering the hundred boundaries disappeared.* * *
Universalium. 2010.