Cent | Etymology, Origin And Meaning Of Cent By Etymonline

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Origin and history of cent

cent(n.)

late 14c., "one hundred," from Latin centum "hundred" (see hundred). The meaning shifted 17c. to "hundredth part" under influence of percent. It was chosen in this sense April 18, 1786, in a Board of Treasury report, as a name for a U.S. currency unit (the hundredth part of a dollar) by the Continental Congress. Dime also first appears as a U.S. coin name in the same document.

The word cent first had been suggested by Robert Morris in 1782 under his original plan for a U.S. currency. Morris's system had an unnamed basic unit at a very small value, and 100 of these was to equal a cent. But the ratio of this cent to the dollar would have been about 144:1.

The Money Unit will be equal to a quarter of a Grain of fine Silver in coined Money. Proceeding thence in a decimal Ratio one hundred would be the lowest Silver Coin and might be called a Cent. [Jan. 15, 1782, Morris's report, included in the Financier's response to a resolution of the Continental Congress on currency exchange]

Thomas Jefferson's counterproposal, which won approval, built on Morris's but eliminated the basic unit and made the decimal system uniform throughout.

Before the cent, Revolutionary and colonial dollars were reckoned in ninetieths, based on the exchange rate of Pennsylvania money and Spanish coin.

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to cent

dime(n.)

chosen 1786 as name for U.S. 10-cent coin (originally of silver), from dime "a tenth, tithe" (late 14c.), from Old French disme (Modern French dîme) "a tenth part" and directly from Medieval Latin decima, from Latin decima (pars) "tenth (part)," from decem "ten" (from PIE root *dekm- "ten").

The verb meaning "to inform" (on someone) is from the 1960s, from the then-cost of a pay-phone call. Alliterative phrase a dime a dozen "almost worthless" is recorded by 1930 (as an actual price, for eggs, etc., by 1861). Phrase stop on a dime attested by 1927 (a dime being the physically smallest unit of U.S. currency); turn on a dime is by 1913. Dime store "retail outlet selling everything for (more or less) 10 cents" is by 1928.

hundred(adj., n.)

"1 more than ninety-nine, ten times ten; the number which is one more than ninety-nine; a symbol representing this number;" Old English hundred "the number of 100, a counting of 100," from Proto-Germanic *hunda-ratha- (source also of Old Frisian hundred, Old Saxon hunderod, Old Norse hundrað, German hundert); first element is Proto-Germanic *hundam "hundred" (cognate with Gothic hund, Old High German hunt), from PIE *km-tom "hundred," reduced from *dkm-tom- (source also of Sanskrit satam, Avestan satem, Greek hekaton, Latin centum, Lithuanian šimtas, Old Church Slavonic suto, Old Irish cet, Breton kant "hundred"), suffixed form of root *dekm- "ten."

The second element is Proto-Germanic *rath "reckoning, number" (as in Gothic raþjo "a reckoning, account, number," garaþjan "to count;" from PIE root *re- "to reason, count"). The common word for the number in Old English was simple hund, and Old English also used hund-teontig. Also compare duodecimal.

The meaning "division of a county or shire with its own court" (still in some British place names and U.S. state of Delaware) was in Old English and probably represents 100 hides of land. The Hundred Years War (which ran intermittently from 1337 to 1453) was first so called in 1874. The original Hundred Days was the period between Napoleon's restoration and his final abdication in 1815.

• percent
• half-cent
• mill
• penny
• red cent
• tricennial
• *dekm-
• See All Related Words (9)

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millMiddle English mille, "building fitted to grind grain," Old English mylen "a mill" (10c.), an early Germanic borrowing from Late Latin molina, molinum "mill" (source of French moulin, Spanish molino), originally fem. and neuter of molinus "pertaining to a mill," from Latin mola "pennyEnglish coin, Middle English peni, from Old English pening, penig, Northumbrian penning "penny," from Proto-Germanic *panninga- (source also of Old Norse penningr, Swedish pänning, Danish penge, Old Frisian panning, Old Saxon pending, Middle Dutch pennic, Dutch penning, Old High HastingsThe Hæstingas were an important tribal group referred to in an 8th cent....Northumbrian chronicle as the gens Hestingorum which seems to have kept a separate identity as late as the early 11th cent...nickelMeaning "coin made partly of nickel" is from 1857, when the U.S. introduced one-cent coins made of nickel to replace the...Application to five-cent piece (originally one part nickel, three parts copper) is from 1883; in earlier circulation there...picayuneuse the Spanish half-real, a coin circulating in Louisiana, Florida, and adjacent regions, worth about 6 cents, later a 5 cent...Halifax"In the 16th cent. the name was wrongly interpreted as OE halig-feax, 'holy hair', and a story invented of a maiden killed...nickelodeon1888 as the name of a theater in Boston; by 1909 as "a motion picture theater," from nickel "five-cent coin" (the cost to...dollar"monetary unit or standard of value in the U.S. and Canada," 1550s, daler, originally in English the name of a large, silver coin of varying value in the German states, from Low German daler, from German taler (1530s, later thaler), abbreviation of Joachimstaler, literally "(guldcoppermalleable metallic element, noted for its peculiar red color, tenacity, malleability, and electric conductivity, late Old English coper, from Proto-Germanic *kupar (source also of Middle Dutch koper, Old Norse koparr, Old High German kupfar), from Late Latin cuprum, contraction oiconalso ikon, 1570s, "image, figure, picture," also "statue," from Late Latin icon, from Greek eikon "likeness, image, portrait; image in a mirror; a semblance, phantom image;" in philosophy, "an image in the mind," related to eikenai "be like, look like," which is of uncertain orig

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