cent

Pronunciation

• IPA: /sent/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French cent (“hundred”),^[2][3] from Latin centum (“hundred”),^[4][2] which is related to hundred.^[4][2] Hoad also allows Italian cento as a source of the coin name.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hundred: before 1375 in Barnhart^[2] and the late 14th century in Etymonline;^[4] the OED queries the sense and marks it obsolete.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Per cent is from 1568,^[7][2] and under its influence the meaning moved in the 17th century to “a hundredth part” (1685).^[4][2] Robert Morris used it in 1782 in a plan for American currency, in which a cent would have been about a 144th of a dollar.^[4][2] On 18 April 1786 a Board of Treasury report adopted it by the Continental Congress as the name of the hundredth part of a dollar;^[4] dime first appears as a coin name in the same document.^[4] Barnhart thinks the choice was probably influenced by the French centime.^[2] The coin name spread to Canada and many Commonwealth countries,^[7] and the cent is now a unit of currency in many countries.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1375 – a hundred.^[2]
• 1568 – per cent.^[7][2]
• 1685 – a hundredth part.^[7][2]
• 1782 – proposed by Robert Morris.^[4][3]
• 1786 – adopted as a US coin.^[4][2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A unit of currency equal to one hundredth of a dollar or of other basic units.
2. A coin worth one cent; a penny.
3. (informal) A very small sum: not worth a cent.

Word family

• half cent
• red cent
• ten-cent store

Related words

• centennial
• centi-
• centipede
• centurion
• century
• hundred
• percent
• centime

Usage notes

A different cent in the OED is an old card game (1532), said to be of Spanish origin.^[7]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin