cent.

¹

abbreviation

1. centigrade.

2. central.

3. centum.

4. century.

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

1. variant of centi- before a vowel.

   centare.

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

Once shares closed at an all-time low of 52 cents on Oct.

Read more on Barron's

The company beat bottom-line expectations as well, turning in adjusted earnings per share of 23 cents, while the FactSet consensus had been for 2 cents.

Read more on MarketWatch

The carmaker earned an adjusted 45 cents a share in the third quarter on revenue of $50.5 billion.

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The gold producer on Thursday posted a profit of $1.83 billion, or $1.67 a share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $922 million, or 80 cents a share, a year earlier.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Two menu items at Costco’s food courts have gone up in price, increases which ranged in price from 10 cents to $1, media outlets confirmed this month.

Read more on Salon

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.