Emily Dickinson Lexicon

HUND'RED, a. [Sax. hund or hundred; Goth. hund; D. honderd; G. hundert; Sw. hundra; Dan. hundre, hundred; L. centum; W. cant, a circle, the hoop of a wheel, the rim of any thing, a complete circle or series, a hundred; Corn. canz; Arm. cant; Ir. ceantr. Lye, in his Saxon and Gothic Dictionary, suggests that this word hund is a mere termination of the Gothic word for ten; taihun-taihund, ten times ten. But this can not be true, for the word is found in the Celtic as well as Gothic dialects, and in the Arabic هَنْدُ hand, Class Gn, No. 63; at least this is probably the same word. The Welsh language exhibits the true sense of the word, which is a circle, a complete series. Hence W. cantrev, a division of a county, or circuit, a canton, a hundred. See Canton. The word signifies a circuit, and the sense of hundred is secondary. The centuria of the Romans, and the hundred, a division of a county in England, might have been merely a division, and not an exact hundred in number.]

Denoting the product of ten multiplied by ten, or the number of ten times ten; as, a hundred men.