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.
[edit] 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 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. 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.
