lustrum
Americannoun
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lustrums,
plural
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lustra
plural
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a period of five years.
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Roman History. a lustration or ceremonial purification of the people, performed every five years, after the taking of the census.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of lustrum
First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin lūstrum; cf. luster 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On September 15, 1928, Dictator de Rivera will have been in power for one whole lustrum.
From Time Magazine Archive
Spanish scurriers to dictionaries were intrigued and mystified by the primary meaning of lustrum: a Latin word signifying the festival at which Romans purified themselves by sacrificing to the Gods many a pig, sheep, bull.
From Time Magazine Archive
Yet his huge mike-and-movie success is less than a lustrum old.
From Time Magazine Archive
More appropriate seemed the second but obscure meaning of lustrum: a period of five years.
From Time Magazine Archive
A few years later the German empire arose to new glory and blessing, and yet a lustrum, and with the rise of Baireuth, came the German art.
From Life of Wagner Biographies of Musicians by Louis Nohl
All the sunny glow of the great Roman's genius seems reflected in this revival of his sentiments, albeit under varying physical conditions, well-nigh three hundred and fifty lustra afterwards.
From Allan Ramsay Famous Scots Series by William Henry Oliphant Smeaton
They counted their eras and ages which they put in their books by groups of twenty years and by lustra of four years.
From History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Hard University. Vol. VII. by Philip Ainsworth Means
Sary passed her hand over the lustra design on the shade and Mrs. Brewster turned to leave the room.
From Polly of Pebbly Pit by Lillian Elizabeth Roy
This led to the computation of time amongst the Romans, by lustra, or periods of five years.
From Domestic Pleasures, or, the Happy Fire-side by Frances Bowyer Vaux
Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter remained nameless upon the earth.
From The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3 by Edgar Allan Poe
In the evolution of the Spanish government the stages will be counted by lustrums.
From Time Magazine Archive
He had been gone three days, and, in their lapse, Theo felt as if three lustrums had passed.
From Theo A Sprightly Love Story by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Dost thou not envy that smirk young knave with his five lustrums, though it goes hard with him to purchase his kid-gloves?
From The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope
And whilst so many lustrums of the sun Rolled on across the sky, men led a life After the roving habit of wild beasts.
From On the Nature of Things by William Ellery Leonard
We who have lived fifteen lustrums have already witnessed the dissolution of our world.
From Confessions of Boyhood by John Albee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
