centavo

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a fractional monetary unit of several countries: El Salvador and Sao Tome and Principe and Brazil and Argentina and Bolivia and Colombia and Cuba and the Dominican Republic and Ecuador and El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras and Mexico and Nicaragua and Peru and the Philippines and Portugal

From Spanish or Portuguese.

--Alrededor de diez centavos por libra. — The Spanish American Reader, Ernesto Nelson
La moneda americana de cobre es el centavo. — A First Spanish Reader, Erwin W. (Erwin William) Roessler
Or the hordes of widows and orphans, beneficiaries of the Army's Mayan "pacification" program, who now begged for centavos or plaintively hawked half-rotten fruit from the safety of the shadows? — Life Blood, Thomas Hoover

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