centuries-long

See also: centurieslong

English

Alternative forms

• centurieslong

Etymology

From centuries +‎ -long.

Adjective

centuries-long (not comparable)

1. Lasting for centuries.
   • 1942, Harry Parker, Britain Afloat and Ashore: Pictures and Engravings of Our National Life and Achievements. […] (publication number twenty-one), London: The Print Collectors’ Club, […], pages 20–21:

     No city in the world has a more varied history and interest, and in none can better be traced the centuries-long line of steady progress from barbarism to civilisation.

   • 1942, Curt Ries, “The Betrayal of a Caste”, in The Self-Betrayed: Glory and Doom of the German Generals, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 213:

     For he had not only handed in his resignation as Chief of Staff; he had gone a step further. He had left the Army, given up his title of general. He had done something that had scarcely ever happened during the centuries-long history of the Prussian Army.

   • 1989, David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, Chicago, Ill., London: The University of Chicago Press, published 1991, →ISBN, page 153:

     In his great survey of the material, Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck concluded that “there is probably no comparable form that enjoys the same structural consistency and provides more effectively valid a mode of signification, in terms of its centuries-long use in the most various cultures and language groups, at all social levels of the Catholic world, and at all conceivable aesthetic levels.”