What does anna mean?
The anna was a unit of currency used in British India and later in independent India and Pakistan, equal to one sixteenth of a rupee. Sixteen annas made a rupee, with smaller copper coins — the pice and the pie — subdividing it further. In everyday use through the first half of the twentieth century, annas appeared constantly in prices, wages, and fares across the subcontinent, making the term a familiar fixture of colonial-era commerce and literature. When India and Pakistan adopted decimal currency in 1957 and 1961 respectively, the anna was phased out, replaced by naye paise. Today the word survives largely in historical writing, memoirs, and coin collecting, where anna coins and notes are sought-after artifacts. For readers of older fiction or accounts of life in pre-decimal India, understanding the anna is essential to grasping the everyday economics of that era.
nounA former coin of India and Pakistan, worth one sixteenth of a rupee, used until decimalization in the mid-20th century.
- A former Indian and Pakistani coin equal to one sixteenth of a rupee, in use until decimalization.
"In his grandfather's tin box lay a handful of old annas, each stamped with the profile of King George VI."
"The bus fare was just two annas when she first moved to Bombay in the 1940s."
"Collectors prize the 1918 one-anna note issued during the First World War."
Regular plural; used when referring to multiple coins or sums of money.
"The whole journey cost her no more than a few annas."
Before 1957, an Indian rupee wasn't divided into 100 pieces but into 16 annas — so one anna was literally a 'sixteenther' of the currency.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of anna
The anna entered use as a denomination under British administration in India, taking its name from local South Asian monetary terminology. It served as the standard subdivision of the rupee — sixteen annas to the rupee — throughout the colonial period and into the mid-twentieth century. With the decimalization of Indian currency in 1957, followed by Pakistan's adoption of decimal coinage, the anna was retired from circulation.
How anna is actually used
The word is now chiefly of historical interest, appearing in older literature, memoirs of colonial-era India, and numismatic contexts. It carries a period flavor and is encountered mainly in writing set before decimalization.
Easily confused with anna
"Anne" is a female given name, whereas "anna" is a former Indian coin of small value.
"Ana" is a slang term associated with anorexia, unrelated to "anna," the historical Indian coin.