cent

UK/sɛnt/US/sɛnt/

nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #2,530 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: cents

A cent is a coin worth one hundredth of a dollar or a euro. Fifty cents, not a cent left, a cent coin.

It is the hundredth part by name, from the Latin for a hundred, which is where per cent and century come from too. Several countries have stopped minting the smallest cent coins because they cost more than they are worth.

Definitions of cent

1nouncentA coin worth one hundredth of a dollar or a euro.A2+
“The sweets cost fifty cents each.”

cent is a coin.

Where it comes from

Latin centum means a hundred, and the coin is named as a hundredth part.

Old French
cent
Middle English
cent
English, today
cent

From Middle English cent, from Old French cent. From Middle English cent, from Old French cent, from Latin centum, from Proto-Indo-European ḱm̥tóm.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

cent in the wild

In mathematics, a percentage, percent, or per cent (from Latin per centum 'by a hundred') is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100.
Percentage
The United States Mint's official name for the coin is "cent" and the U.S.
Penny (United States coin)
Many businesses round cash transactions to the nearest 5 cents if pennies are unavailable.
Penny (United States coin)
The two-cent piece was produced by the Mint of the United States for circulation from 1864 to 1872 and for collectors in 1873.
Two-cent piece (United States)
The Lincoln cent (sometimes called the Lincoln penny) is a one-cent coin that has been struck by the United States Mint every year since 1909.
Lincoln cent

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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