Bit (money)
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The word bit is a colloquial reference to a specific coin in various coinages throughout the world.
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[edit] United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries
Most familiarly, the threepence coin; the Thrupp'ny bit. In Canada, 2 bits and 4 bits are common expressions used to denote 25 and 50 cents respectively.
[edit] Spain
Worth one-eighth of a Spanish dollar (peso).
The term derives from the practice of cutting a peso into eight radial slices to make change. Each of these pieces was called a bit, and equal in value to a Spanish real.
[edit] United States
The term persists colloquially in the United States as a holdover from colonial America, when Spanish dollars minted in Mexico, Bolivia and other Spanish colonies were the widest circulating coin. Spanish dollars were deemed equivalent in value to a U.S. dollar. To provide smaller denominations, they were 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 Spanish 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 following couplet: 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 until June 24, 1997, at which time it started listing in sixteenths. It did not fully implement decimal listing until January 29, 2001, according to the research staff at the NYSE.
As an adjective, "two-bit" can be used to describe something cheap or unworthy. For example, a "two-bit hood" is a hoodlum who steals/scams for chump change.
[edit] 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.
