cent

¹

[ sent ]

noun

1. one 100th of the dollar, or other basic monetary unit, of various nations, including the United States. : ¢, c
2. penny ( def 1 ):

   Sorry, I’ve only got two dimes, a nickel, and four cents.

3. a monetary unit of certain European Union countries, one 100th of a euro.

cent-

²

1. variant of centi- before a vowel:

   centare.

cent.

³

abbreviation for

1. centigrade.
2. central.
3. centum.
4. century.

cent

/ sɛnt /

noun

1. a monetary unit of American Samoa, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Brunei, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Micronesia, Monaco, Montenegro, Namibia, Nauru, the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Réunion, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Surinam, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, the United States, the Vatican City, the Virgin Islands, and Zimbabwe. It is worth one hundredth of their respective standard units
2. an interval of pitch between two frequencies f 2 and f 1 equal to 3986.31 log ( f 2 / f 1 ); one twelve-hundredth of the interval between two frequencies having the ratio 1:2 (an octave)

Word History and Origins

Origin of cent¹

First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Latin centēsimus “hundredth” (by shortening), equivalent to cent(um) “100” ( hundred ) + -ēsimus ordinal suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of cent¹

C16: from Latin centēsimus hundredth, from centum hundred

Idioms and Phrases

see for two cents ; not worth a dime (red cent) ; put in one's two cents .

Example Sentences

For example, since 2011 it has been adding 30 per cent more capacity per year on flights to Puerto Rico.

From The Daily Beast

The Wall Street Journal reported that in the U.S. 44 per cent of drinkers aged between 21 and 27 had never even tried Budweiser.

From The Daily Beast

In Kentucky the bourbon distillers have had to increase their payrolls by 77 per cent in two years to meet the demand.

From The Daily Beast

Force senators, their spouses and their immediate family to report their wealth down to the last dollar and cent.

From The Daily Beast

And--crucially--if no one gets 50 per cent of the vote, the top two candidates face off on December 6th.

From The Daily Beast

The Act permits member banks to accept an amount of bills not exceeding 50 per cent.

From Project Gutenberg

We did not talk much about the past at dinner, except—ah me, how bitterly we regretted our 10 per cent.

From Project Gutenberg

Up to the present, I have not received a cent from the revolutionists or from the Spanish Government to cover these expenses.

From Project Gutenberg

The percentage of gold to the notes—the main demand liability—has, of course, fallen from about 65 to 35 per cent.

From Project Gutenberg

At present this medium is paper money depreciated, as in the case of the Reichsbank notes, by nearly 30 per cent.

From Project Gutenberg

Words That Use Cent-

What does cent- mean?

Cent- is a combining form used like a prefix meaning “hundredth” or “hundred.”

Cent- comes from the Latin centum, meaning “hundred.” The word cent, as in a hundredth of a dollar and also known as a penny, ultimately comes from this same Latin root, as does percent. The Greek word for “hundred” is hekatón, source of the combining forms hecto-, hect-, hekto-, and hekt-, which you can learn more about in our Words That Use articles for the forms.

Cent- is a variant of centi-, which loses its -i– when combined with words or word elements beginning with vowels.

Want to know more? Read our Words That Use centi- article.

Examples of cent-

Among other senses, centennial means “marking or lasting one hundred years, such as the centennial anniversary of an event.”

The cent- part of the word means “hundred” and -ennial means “pertaining to a period of years.” So, centennial has a literal sense of “hundred year period.”

What are some words that use or are related to the combining form cent-?

The following forms feature the equivalent forms of cent- in Latin, Spanish, or French.

• cental
• centare
• centavo
• centenary
• centenarian
• centesimal
• centile

What are some other forms that cent- may be commonly confused with?

• centri-
• centr-
• ceno-

Not every word that begins with the exact letters cent- is necessarily using the combining form cent- to denote “hundredth,” such as center or centaur. Learn more about their history and meaning at our entries for the words.

Break it down!

Centesimal describes something divided into how many parts?