cent-

¹

1. variant of centi- before a vowel.

   centare.

cent

²

[sent]

noun

1. one 100th of the dollar, or other basic monetary unit, of various nations, including the United States. ¢, c

2. penny.

   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.

³

abbreviation

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

Beatty said that fund one had already distributed 24 cents on the dollar and is expected to hit a dollar in 2026.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

A year ago, in the third quarter of 2024, Li reported earning per share of 26 cents from sales of $6.1 billion.

Read more on Barron's

"We had to make a decision to make less profit and the truth is it meant less staff pay rises. We would love to have given a per cent more than we were able to."

Read more on BBC

While results for the computer company’s fiscal fourth quarter exceeded forecasts, management said it expects fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings to be between 73 cents and 81 cents a share.

Read more on Barron's

The company reported a loss of 3 cents a share and revenue of $618 million for its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended Sept. 27.

Read more on MarketWatch

When To Use

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.