cent
pronunciation
How to pronounce cent in British English:
UK [sent]
How to pronounce cent in American English:
US [sent]
-
- Noun:
- a fractional monetary unit of several countries
- a coin worth one-hundredth of the value of the basic unit
Word Origin
- cent
- cent: [16] Centum is the Latin word for ‘hundred’ – indeed both come ultimately from the same Indo-European source, *kmtóm. It first appeared in English in the form cent in the phrase per cent (originally used apparently by the financier Sir Thomas Gresham in a letter of 1568: ‘the interest of xij per cent by the year’); this was probably borrowed from Italian per cento (it is not a genuine Latin phrase). The use of cent for a unit of currency dates from the 1780s, when it was adopted by the newly founded USA; its status as one hundredth of a dollar was officially ordained by the Continental Congress on 8 August 1786.=> century
- cent (n.)
- late 14c., from Latin centum "hundred" (see hundred). Middle English meaning was "one hundred," but it shifted 17c. to "hundredth part" under influence of percent. Chosen in this sense in 1786 as a name for a U.S. currency unit by Continental Congress. The word first was suggested by Robert Morris in 1782 under a different currency plan. Before the cent, Revolutionary and colonial dollars were reckoned in ninetieths, based on the exchange rate of Pennsylvania money and Spanish coin.
Example
- 1. The servants must take 25 per cent less wages .
- 2. Argentina has not yet paid a cent to any of them .
- 3. Inflation killed the farthing just as it has killed the canadian cent .
- 4. That november the libertarian ticket received only one per cent of the vote .
- 5. The comparable figure for beaming live television over the airwaves is less than one cent a minute .