Definition of "indiction" [in•dic•tion]

• A 15-year cycle used as a chronological unit in ancient Rome and incorporated in some medieval systems. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word indiction was transferred to the measure of tribute which it prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for the payment."
• "Benedictines.] * It does not appear that the establishment of the indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before he had been created Augustus at Rome, and the remission granted by him to the city of Autun is the proof."
• "The indiction was a cycle of fifteen years, the first of these cycles being conceived to have started at a point three years before the beginning of the present Christian Era."