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Two-centuries old windmills What does the following sentence actually mean and is it written correctly?: Two-centuries old windmills. a. There are two windmills, both are a century old. b. There is one windmill, that is two centuries old. I favor the meaning of "a", because windmills is plural because it ends with an "s". I am still quite unsure if the original sentence is actually written correctly with regards to the hyphen and when to use century or centuries in a sentence. If someone could explain this to me and also suggest how I could rewrite option a. and b. using a similar format to the original sentence, then that would be great.

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Thanks Megan!
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I also think that "a" is correct, the hyphen is just in the wrong spot; the hyphen should be between "centuries" and "old". The fact that there are multiple windmills indicates that "centuries" must be used, century is used when there is only one of them. "A" could be rewritten similar to the original as: "Two centuries-old windmills." "B" could be written as "A two century old windmill", however, most people would say "A two hundred year old windmill."
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Two-centuries old windmills

What does the following sentence actually means  and is it written correctly? There are  two-centuries old windmills.
A. There are two windmills; both of them are a century old. > 2 of them
B. There is one windmill that is two centuries old. > One of them


I favor the use of "a", because windmills is plural as it ends with an "s". I am still quite unsure if the original sentence is actually written correctly with regards to the hyphen and when to use century or centuries in a sentence.

If someone could explain this to me and also suggest how I could rewrite option A and B to have similar meaning to the the original sentence . Then that would be great.

There are  two-centuries old windmills > This means that the windmills you are looking at are 200 years old : the number as to how many there are is not specified -- 2 or more of them which are 200 years old . "Two-centuries" is an adjective, after being hyphenated .

Example > There are all 2-years old / My made -to-measure suit is ready.


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