lustrum

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

On September 15, 1928, Dictator de Rivera will have been in power for one whole lustrum.

From Time Magazine Archive

Though scarce more than a lustrum had passed since the settlement on the shores of the Bay, long hose like the Florentine hose had become entirely old-fashioned and breeches were the wear.

From Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle

He accepted of the tribunitian power for life, but more than once chose a colleague in that office for two lustra 147 successively.

From The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

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

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

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

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

In the evolution of the Spanish government the stages will be counted by lustrums.

From Time Magazine Archive

It was enough for them, that they were to live asunder two whole years; and two whole years appear like an age to those who have not yet lived their four lustrums.

From The Crater by James Fenimore Cooper

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

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

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