cent

¹

[ sent ]

noun

1. one 100th of the dollar, or other basic monetary unit, of various nations, including the United States. : ¢, c
2. penny ( def 1 ):

   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-

²

1. variant of centi- before a vowel:

   centare.

cent.

³

abbreviation for

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

"This pain affects up to 15 per cent of adults in their lifetime, and all we have are anti-inflammatories and opioids which can cause side effects and addiction," Dr Muttenthaler said.

From Science Daily

Nearly 70 per cent of Ontario residents, for example, support legislative changes to facilitate forced treatment.

From Salon

The mean age of participants is 72.6 years with about 52 per cent of them female.

From Science Daily

Both types of programs have better completion rates than standard outpatient treatment programs, where the drop-out level can be as high as 50 per cent.

From Science Daily

In 2024, overall food price inflation in the UK has fallen to 1.7 per cent, but less so for cheese.

From BBC

Words That Use Cent-

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.

Examples of cent-

Among other senses, centennial means “marking or lasting one hundred years, such as the centennial anniversary of an event.”

The cent- part of the word means “hundred” and -ennial means “pertaining to a period of years.” So, centennial has a literal sense of “hundred year period.”

What are some words that use or are related to the combining form cent-?

The following forms feature the equivalent forms of cent- in Latin, Spanish, or French.

• cental
• centare
• centavo
• centenary
• centenarian
• centesimal
• centile

What are some other forms that cent- may be commonly confused with?

• centri-
• centr-
• ceno-

Not every word that begins with the exact letters cent- is necessarily using the combining form cent- to denote “hundredth,” such as center or centaur. Learn more about their history and meaning at our entries for the words.

Break it down!

Centesimal describes something divided into how many parts?