quadricentenarian
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: quadricentenarians
Etymology: From quadri- + centenarian.
Senses: examples: text: Two of these trees are pines and two are oaks; there can be no doubt that they are 400 years old because the mikado says they are, and he ought to know, for, as we understand, he planted them himself. But, whether they be quadricentenarians or not, Mrs. Potter intends to utilize them for all the advertising there is in them.
ref: 1891 September 1, “A Dramatic Innovation”, in The Kansas City Star, volume 11, number 299, Kansas City, Mo., page 8:
text: With drums proudly beating, / With glad birthday greeting, / At Columbia’s feet their priceless gift they cast / To the quadricentenarian / Both Greek and Barbarian / Before her strength and beauty stand aghast.
ref: 1893 January, “The Columbian Exposition”, in Lasell Leaves, volume XVIII, number 4, Auburndale, Mass., page 69:
text: A POSSIBLE QUADRICENTENARIAN / A LIVING creature that has trod the earth, however sluggishly, since the days of the Spanish Armada is an object of no common degree of interest. Such a creature has just passed away peacefully in London, in the person of Drake, a venerable tortoise of the Zoological Gardens, supposed to be nearly four hundred years old.
ref: 1906 July 28, The Literary Digest, volume XXXIII, number 4, New York, N.Y., page 113:
text: Historic towns. Some are centenarians. But San Germán (right) is a quadricentenarian — and the home of one of the oldest churches in America.
ref: 1967 March, Holiday, volume 41, number 3, page 99:
text: But today I would have to wonder, since only by this very year of 1985 do any composers in our standard concert repertoire date back as much as three centuries. (Our one notable quadri'''centenarian this year, Heinrich Schutz, still has not quite entered into the “standard concert repertoire.”)
ref: 1985 summer, William S. Newman, “Four Baroque Keyboard Practices and What Became of Them”, in The Piano Quarterly, 33rd year, number 130, page 19:
text: The quadricentenarians of the colony sat on the foremost benches, nodding numbly to the drone of the hardrangers’ strings, their liver-spotted fingers rippling to the runs of the tune.
ref: 1993, David Cook, Soldiers of Ice (The Harpers), Lake Geneva, Wis.: TSR, Inc., →ISBN, page 150:
text: Previous to the discovery of this quadricentenarian, the record for the oldest animal was held by a 374-year-old Icelandic quahog clam housed in a German museum.
ref: 2010, Anthony D. Fredericks, “Quahog clam: 405 years”, in How Long Things Live, Stackpole Books, →ISBN, pages 124–125:
text: So I began the series as a quadricentenarian, a 400-year-old, and travelled backwards in time until eventually I reached the age that I was, 58.
ref: 2011, Grahame Bond, Jack of All Trades, Mistress of One, NewSouth Publishing, page 261:
text: ‘How long have you been a Spice Ghost?’ Clove pierced him with a dark look. ‘Four hundred and twenty-three years.’ She then turned to Ned. ‘Are we intending to travel the entire distance today?’ Ned was trying not to look too shocked at the fact that a quadricentenarian stood in front of him.
ref: 2021, Claire Buss, The Bone Thief (Roshaven Book 3), CB Visions:
glosses: One who or that which is between 400 and 499 years old.