Cent is a term used to denote one-hundredth of a unit, such as a dollar or a euro. It’s also referred to as the penny in the United States and Canada. The cent symbol (¢) was first introduced in 1786 by Benjamin Franklin, who wanted it to be an abbreviation for “centum” which translates from Latin into English as “hundred”.
In monetary terms, cents are used all over the world when referring to amounts less than one whole unit of currency. For example, if you have $5 that would equal 500 cents – five units multiplied by 100 (the number of cents per unit). In some countries like Canada and Australia, they use two decimal places after their main currency value so 5 dollars would be written 5.00 with each decimal point representing 10 additional pennies or 0.10 each; so 5 dollars = 500 pennies/cents!
Cents can also refer more broadly speaking to fractions rather than just monetary values; this could include measurements such as time intervals or angles on maps etc., but most commonly it is associated with money because coins are usually divided up into smaller denominations called ‘cents’ – e.g 1 Euro = 100 Cents / 1 Pound Sterling = 100 pence / 1 US Dollar=100 CENTS. This allows us easily calculate prices down very accurately without having too many different types of coins being needed – making shopping much simpler!
Overall then we can see that Cent plays an important role in our lives: not only does it make calculating prices easier but its origins date back hundreds of years ago when Benjamin Franklin proposed its use for fractional parts within currencies around Europe at large scale levels – something which has been adopted ever since and continues today across numerous nations worldwide!