What does centavo mean?
A centavo is a fractional unit of currency equal to one hundredth of a principal monetary unit, used chiefly in Latin America and the Philippines. It serves the same role that the cent plays in the United States dollar or the centime in the old French franc: one hundred centavos make one peso in countries such as Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, and Argentina, and they likewise subdivide units like the Venezuelan bolívar and the Mozambican metical. The word comes from Spanish and literally suggests 'one-hundredth,' sharing its root with English words like 'cent' and 'percent.' Although centavos appear on price tags and receipts throughout the region, inflation has rendered many of them practically worthless, and in several countries small-denomination centavo coins have disappeared from daily circulation. For travelers, knowing the term is useful for reading menus, bus fares, and market prices, where figures such as '2.50' implicitly mean two pesos and fifty centavos.
nounA monetary subunit equal to one hundredth of the basic unit of several currencies, including the peso of Mexico and the Philippines, the bolívar of Venezuela, and other Latin American currencies.
- One hundredth of a peso in Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, Argentina, and other countries whose currency is called the peso.
- One hundredth of other Latin American currency units such as the Venezuelan bolívar or the Mozambican metical.
"The bus fare was just two pesos fifty — barely a handful of centavos."
"She counted out her coins and found she was three centavos short of the fare."
"Prices in the market are still marked in centavos, even though no one carries coins that small anymore."
Regular English plural formed by adding -s; used when referring to more than one unit of any currency subdivided into centavos.
"He saved every spare centavos coin in a jar on his desk."
In Mexico, prices are quoted in pesos, yet the humble centavo is so rarely used that most transactions round it out of existence entirely.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of centavo
Centavo is borrowed directly from Spanish, where it was formed from Latin 'centum,' meaning 'hundred,' combined with the suffix '-avo' indicating a fractional part (as in 'octavo'). It entered English through contact with Spanish-speaking economies in Latin America and, later, the Philippines, which inherited both the word and the peso-based currency system from Spanish colonial rule. Its relatives include 'cent,' 'centime,' and 'percent,' all descended from the same Latin root for one hundred.
How centavo is actually used
Always used in reference to specific national currencies; it is never a standalone term for money in general. In everyday speech across Latin America, amounts in centavos often appear only in written prices, since small-value coins have fallen largely out of circulation in several countries. The plural is simply 'centavos.'
Easily confused with centavo
A cent is one hundredth of a dollar or euro, while a centavo is the corresponding fractional unit of currencies such as the Mexican or Philippine peso.