centesimation
The selection by lot of every hundredth man (of an army or group of prisoners or mutineers) for execution.
Noun
- The selection by lot of every hundredth man (of an army or group of prisoners or mutineers) for execution.
- CENTESIMATION, a milder kind of military puniſhment, in caſes of deſertion, mutiny, and the like, when only every hundredth man is executed. - 1763, A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, second edition,...
- Sometimes the criminals were decimated by lot, as appears in Polybius, Tacitus, Plutarch, Appian, Dio, Julius Capitolinus, who also mentions a centesimation. - page 413
- 1897, The Columbian Cyclopedia VI, “centesimate” To inflict the punishment of centesimation.
Origin
From the Latin centēsimātiō, from centēsimō, from centēsimus (“hundredth”); compare quintation, septimation, decimation, vicesimation, and tricesimation.