Hist. Forms: 4–5 candrede, 5 candred, 5–7 cantrede, 6–9 cantred. [app. an adaptation of CANTREF, assimilated to the Eng. hundred.] A hundred; a district containing a hundred townships.
1387. Trevisa, Higden, Rolls Ser. I. 343. A candrede is a contray þat conteyneþ an hondred townes.
1480. Caxton, Descr. Brit., 20. Hundred and candred is all one.
1495. Act 11 Hen. VII., xxxiv. Preamb., Cantredes, comotes, hundredes … to the seid Castelles … belongyng.
1577. Holinshed, Chron., II. 10/2. Meeth conteineth but sixteene cantreds.
1587. Harrison, England, II. xix. (1877), I. 312. Essex hath in time past wholie beene forrest ground, except one cantred or hundred.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, II. vii. 60. Two Knights Fees make a Cantred.
1614. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit., Pref. The Shires divisions into Lathes, Hundreds, Wapentakes, and Cantreds.
1747. Carte, Hist. Eng., I. 640. The city of Wexford and the two adjoining cantreds.
1874. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. iv. 63. The cantred of Howel dha may answer to the hundred of Edgar.
† b. transf. Obs.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 139. That this … is evenly dealt out amongst the sundry Clubs and Cantreds of bodies.
