noun
cent
One hundredth of a semitone in music.
The tuner shows that the note is five cents sharp.
Etymology
Latin centum means hundred. The musical unit applies that hundred-based naming to pitch intervals, dividing a semitone into one hundred equal logarithmic steps.
More examples
- A semitone contains one hundred cents.
- The two tones differ by only a few cents.
- She adjusts the pitch downward by ten cents.
Forms
cent · cents
Similar words
- semitone
- A pitch interval one hundred times as large.
- hertz
- Measures frequency rather than the relative size of an interval.