What does cental mean?
Cental is a noun denoting a unit of weight equivalent to one hundred pounds avoirdupois — what American traders call the short hundredweight. In British usage, however, the same word has served as a name for the long hundredweight, which weighs 112 pounds, so the term's exact value depends on where and when it appears. Cental belongs firmly to the specialized world of commerce: it shows up in grain contracts, shipping manifests, and commodity price quotations rather than everyday speech. The word was formed from Latin centum, meaning "hundred," the same root that gives us cent, percent, and century. Though largely archaic now, cental remains intelligible to anyone working with historical trade records or agricultural statistics, and it offers a tidy reminder that English measurement vocabulary has long been shaped by Latin numbers and commercial necessity.
nounA unit of weight equal to one hundred pounds avoirdupois; in Britain it is also used for the long hundredweight of 112 pounds.
- A unit of weight equal to 100 pounds avoirdupois (the short hundredweight), chiefly used in US commodity trading.
- In British usage, another name for the long hundredweight of 112 pounds.
"The merchant priced the grain at a fixed rate per cental."
"The contract specified delivery of two hundred centals of wheat by autumn."
"British traders sometimes quoted prices per cental when dealing in bulk commodities."
Regular pluralization applies when referring to multiple units.
"The warehouse stored several thousand centals of barley."
"Cental" sounds like "central" with a typo, but it's actually an obscure trading term for a hundred pounds of goods — a word you'll meet far more often on old commodity invoices than in conversation.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cental
Cental derives from the Latin centum, meaning "hundred," combined with an adjectival suffix, and entered English as a commercial term for a hundredweight. It shares this Latin root with words such as cent, percent, century, and centenary. The word arose in the context of commodity trading, where merchants needed precise terms for standardized quantities of grain and other bulk goods.
How cental is actually used
Cental is rare and technical today, appearing mainly in historical documents, agricultural contracts, and commodity pricing. It is formal and specialist rather than conversational vocabulary.
Easily confused with cental
A centennial is a hundredth anniversary, while a cental is a unit of weight equal to one hundred pounds.
Central means situated in the middle or most important, whereas a cental is a unit of weight.