- Bit (money)
The word bit is a colloquial reference to a specific
coin in variouscoinage s throughout the world.United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries
Most familiarly, the threepence coin; the
Thrupp'ny bit .United States
To provide smaller denominations, silver currency was cut into eighths, or "bits". Thus, twenty-five cents was dubbed "two bits," or two 12.5 cent units, as it was a quarter of a dollar. Correspondingly, the terms "four bits" and "six bits" referred to fifty and seventy-five cents, respectively. For example, "Six-Bits Blues" by
Langston Hughes included the followingcouplet : "Gimme six bits' worth o'ticket"/"On a train that runs somewhere…".Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10 ¢) was sometimes called a "short bit" and 15c a "long bit".
The
New York Stock Exchange continued to list stock prices in eighths of a dollar untilJune 24 ,1997 , at which time it started listing in sixteenths. It did not fully implement decimal listing untilJanuary 29 ,2001 .As an adjective, "two-bit" can be used to describe something cheap or unworthy.Danish West Indies
From 1905 to 1917, the
Danish West Indies used stamps denominated in "bits " and "francs" with 100 bits to the franc; the lowest value was five bits.ee also
*
Picayune
*Shave and a haircut
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