between

[bhaisahab]

Alright, but what if I'm talking about a war that spanned the period between 1593 and 1612? It's not the early years of any century...

In that case, to be unambiguous, "it spanned the latter part/the end of the 16th century and the early part/beginning of the 17th century".

[birdeen's call]

In that case, to be unambiguous, "it spanned the latter part/the end of the 16th century and the early part/beginning of the 17th century".

Ouch, that's long Thank you!

[emsr2d2]

Ouch, that's long Thank you!

You could probably get away with "It spanned the 16th and 17th centuries" but there's a danger that readers might think it ran from 1501-1699!

[euncu]

You could probably get away with "It spanned the 16th and 17th centuries" but there's a danger that readers might think it ran from 1501-1699!

It spanned the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Would it solve the problem so we don't have to get away?

[birdeen's call]

Good to have one word for it in one's language, I must say

[bertietheblue]

It spanned the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

[Rover_KE]

Alright, but what if I'm talking about a war that spanned the period between 1593 and 1612? It's not the early years of any century...

Let's be realistic.

Anybody writing about a war whose exact dates are historically factual will state those dates.

Nobody would ever write 'The First World War lasted for a few years fairly early on in the twentieth century, and there was a Second World War a bit later, finishing towards the middle of the century'.

But talking about feudalism, though, one would have to say that it started to develop in the eighth century and only began to decline during the course of the sixteenth.

Rover

[birdeen's call]

Let's be realistic.

Anybody writing about a war whose exact dates are historically factual will state those dates.

I don't think I wasn't being realistic... As I said, we have one handy word that we can use on such occasions, not only for centuries but also years, and months, and some other. We use it very often, and my example was a typical example of such a situation. When a writer does not want to bore his readers with unnecessary dates, they will just use this word. So what can seem unrealistic for you is not for milions of Poles