A former monetary unit equal to one hundredth of various currencies, especially the franc, or a current coin in some African countries.
From French 'centime,' meaning one hundredth of a franc, from 'centi-' (one hundredth) + 'time' (from Latin 'decima' meaning tenth). The centime was adopted when the metric system influenced currency.
The centime is why the euro replaced francs as currency—when France switched to euros in 2002, they abandoned centimes entirely, and now only a handful of African countries use centimes (like in the CFA franc), showing how currency evolves with economics!
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