Hundreds

[huhn-drid] /ˈhʌn drɪd/

noun, plural hundreds (as after a numeral) hundred.
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.

6.
(formerly) an administrative division of an English county.
7.
a similar division in colonial Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, and in present-day Delaware.
8.
Also called hundred’s place. Mathematics.

adjective
9.
amounting to one hundred in number.
/ˈhʌndrəd/
noun (pl) -dreds, -dred
1.
the cardinal number that is the product of ten and ten; five score See also number (sense 1)
2.
a numeral, 100, C, etc, representing this number
3.
(often pl) a large but unspecified number, amount, or quantity: there will be hundreds of people there
4.
the hundreds

5.
(pl) the 100 years of a specified century: in the sixteen hundreds
6.
something representing, represented by, or consisting of 100 units
7.
(maths) the position containing a digit representing that number followed by two zeros: in 4376, 3 is in the hundred’s place
8.
an ancient division of a county in England, Ireland, and parts of the US
determiner
9.

10.
amounting to 100 times a particular scientific quantity: a hundred volts
n.

Old English hundred “the number of 100, a counting of 100,” from West Germanic *hundrath (cf. Old Norse hundrað, German hundert); first element is Proto-Germanic *hundam “hundred” (cf. Gothic hund, Old High German hunt), from PIE *km-tom “hundred,” reduced from *dkm-tom- (cf. Sanskrit satam, Avestan satem, Greek hekaton, Latin centum, Lithuanian simtas, Old Church Slavonic suto, Old Irish cet, Breton kant “hundred”), from *dekm- “ten” (see ten).

Second element is Proto-Germanic *rath “reckoning, number” (cf. Gothic raþjo “a reckoning, account, number,” garaþjan “to count;” see read (v.)). The common word for the number in Old English was simple hund, and Old English also used hund-teontig.

In Old Norse hundrath meant 120, that is the long hundred of six score, and at a later date, when both the six-score hundred and the five-score hundred were in use, the old or long hundred was styled hundrath tolf-roett … meaning “duodecimal hundred,” and the new or short hundred was called hundrath ti-rætt, meaning “decimal hundred.” “The Long Hundred and its use in England” was discussed by Mr W.H. Stevenson, in 1889, in the Archcæological Review (iv. 313-27), where he stated that amongst the Teutons, who longest preserved their native customs unimpaired by the influence of Latin Christianity, the hundred was generally the six-score hundred. The short hundred was introduced among the Northmen in the train of Christianity. [“Transactions” of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 1907]

Meaning “division of a county or shire with its own court” (still in some British place names and U.S. state of Delaware) was in Old English and probably represents 100 hides of land. The Hundred Years War (which ran intermittently from 1337 to 1453) was first so called in 1874. The original Hundred Days was the period between Napoleon’s restoration and his final abdication in 1815.

see: by the dozen (hundred)