noun
- Plural of cento; literary works composed of passages or lines taken from other authors and arranged to form a new composition.
Usage: literary; historical; often used in classical and medieval literature
Examples
- Medieval scholars created centones by weaving together verses from classical poets.
- The centones tradition demonstrates how writers reused and recombined existing literary material.
- Roman poets sometimes composed centones as intellectual exercises.
- These centones were often made from Virgil's works, rearranged to tell new stories.