cento

cen·to

C0200300 (sĕn′tō)n. pl. cen·tos A poem or other literary work pieced together from the works of several authors.

[Latin centō, patchwork.]

cento

(ˈsɛntəʊ) n, pl -tos (Poetry) a piece of writing, esp a poem, composed of quotations from other authors[C17: from Latin, literally: patchwork garment]

CENTO

(ˈsɛntəʊ) n acronym for (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) Central Treaty Organization; an organization for military and economic cooperation formed in 1959 by the UK, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey as a successor to the Baghdad Pact: disbanded 1979

Cento, Centones, Centoism

A literary or musical composition made up of selections; a string or rigmarole; a composition formed by joining scraps from other authors, 1605; a patchwork of coloured cloths, 1610.Examples: cento of blunders, 1780; of borrowed thoughts, 1859; of commonplaces, 1822; of literary works, 1605; of musical composition; of uncircumcised nations, 1647; of patchwork, 1610; of revolters of popery, 1626; of scriptural phrases; of verses, 1882.

Cento

a poem consisting entirely of lines from other poems; its aim is to emphasize the similarity or contrast between the new and the previous context of each fragment. The most famous centos are those from the late classical period that use lines and hemistichs by Vergil; examples are Ausonius’ Cento Nuptialis (fourth century A.D.) and Proba Falconia’s Cento Vergilianus (fifth century A.D.). The cento later went out of use, and now remains only as a poetic diversion.

The following poem by I. Sel’vinskii, an epigram on A. Zharov, is an example of a modern cento: the four successive lines are from poems by S. Esenin, A. Blok, N. Nekrasov, and S. Kirsanov, respectively.

 Budu pet’, budu pet’, budu pet’
 Mnogoiarusnyi korpus zavoda
 I kobylok v prostorakh svobody,
 Chtob na bloke do Bloka vskripet’.
 (“I shall sing, I shall sing, I shall sing
 The multitiered factory building
And the young mares in the expanses of freedom,
So that the pulley’s squeaking will reach Blok.”)

Acronym

Definition

CENTO➣Central Treaty Organization