Mag·uey n.  Bot. Any of several species of Agave,  such as the century plant (Agave Americana), a plant requiring many years to come to maturity and blossoming only once before dying; and the Agave atrovirens, a Mexican plant used especially for making pulque, the source of the colorless Mexican liquor mescal; and the cantala (Agave cantala), a Philippine plant yielding a hard fibre used in making coarse twine.  See Agave.

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 A·ga·ve prop. n.  Bot. A genus of plants (order Amaryllidaceae) of which the chief species is the maguey or century plant (Agave Americana), wrongly called Aloe.  It takes from ten to seventy years, according to climate, to attain maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes.  The juice has purgative and diuretic properties.  The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal.  A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the leaves, and the wood has many uses.

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 Pi·ta n.  Bot. (a) A fiber obtained from the Agave Americana and other related species, -- used for making cordage and paper. Called also pita fiber, and pita thread. (b) The plant which yields the fiber.

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 Si·sal grass Si·sal hemp The prepared fiber of the Agave Americana, or American aloe, used for cordage; -- so called from Sisal, a port in Yucatan. See Sisal hemp, under Hemp.

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 A·mo·le n.  Bot. Any detergent plant, or the part of it used as a detergent, as the roots of Agave Americana, Chlorogalum pomeridianum, etc. [Sp. Amer. & Mex.]

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 Cen·tu·ry n.; pl. Centuries
 1. A hundred; as, a century of sonnets; an aggregate of a hundred things. [Archaic.]
    And on it said a century of prayers.   --Shak.
 2. A period of a hundred years; as, this event took place over two centuries ago.
 Note: ☞ Century, in the reckoning of time, although often used in a general way of any series of hundred consecutive years (as, a century of temperance work), usually signifies a division of the Christian era, consisting of a period of one hundred years ending with the hundredth year from which it is named; as, the first century (a. d. 1-100 inclusive); the seventh century (a.d. 601-700); the eighteenth century (a.d. 1701-1800). With words or phrases connecting it with some other system of chronology it is used of similar division of those eras; as, the first century of Rome (A.U.C.  1-100).
 3. Rom. Antiq. (a) A division of the Roman people formed according to their property, for the purpose of voting for civil officers. (b) One of sixty companies into which a legion of the army was divided. It was Commanded by a centurion.
 Century plant Bot., the Agave Americana, formerly supposed to flower but once in a century; -- hence the name. See Agave.
 The Magdeburg Centuries, an ecclesiastical history of the first thirteen centuries, arranged in thirteen volumes, compiled in the 16th century by Protestant scholars at Magdeburg.

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 Agave americana
      n : widely cultivated American monocarpic plant with
          greenish-white flowers on a tall stalk; blooms only after
          ten to twenty years and then dies [syn: American agave]