quarter-century

From quarter +‎ century.

quarter-century (plural quarter-centuries)

1. A period of twenty-five years.
   • 1957 July, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Six Decades of Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 471:

     In the present writer's opinion there was no greater and more successful locomotive engineer in the country, during the first quarter-century, than George Jackson Churchward of the Great Western Railway. This statement is made without prejudice, for I was brought up on the other line extending from Waterloo to Padstow, and between Swindon and Eastleigh there was a great gulf fixed.

   • 1978, Philip Larkin, The Winter Palace:

     I spent my second quarter-century
     Losing what I had learnt at university
     And refusing to take in what had happened since […]

• half-century