1. a literary or musical work made up of selections or passages from other works, often arranged in a new way
Usage: literary term; from Latin, meaning 'patchwork'
2. a poem composed entirely of lines or passages taken from the works of other poets
Usage: classical and medieval literature

Examples

• The composer created a cento by weaving together melodies from famous symphonies.
• Medieval scholars sometimes produced centos from classical Latin texts.
• Her essay was criticized for being a cento of unattributed quotations.
• The artist's cento combined fragments from Renaissance paintings into a new composition.
• A cento requires skill to blend disparate sources into a coherent whole.