In this paper, we introduce a type of generalized Hausdorff operators and characterize the boundedness of these operators on Lebesgue spaces and central Morrey spaces. Moreover, we obtain the operator norms on these spaces. We also obtain sufficient and necessary conditions which ensure the boundedness of their commutators on Lebesgue spaces and central Morrey spaces with symbols in central BMO spaces. As applications, we give a new method to obtain sharp bounds for weighted Hardy operators and weighted Cesàro operators on Lebesgue spaces and central Morrey spaces.