Annas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A historical monetary unit formerly used in parts of India, equal to one-sixteenth of a rupee
2. A term used in Indian currency to denote a subdivision that encompasses both fractions and whole numbers
3. A reference to an obsolete coinage, now rarely used, that represented a small amount of value in Indian finance

Etymology: "Annas" is the plural of "anna," a small coin once used across British India, and the word traces back to Sanskrit "anna," meaning "food" or "grain." The link between grain and money is not a coincidence: the coin's name passed through Hindi, where "ann" retains that original sense of food, before the coin itself took on the name. The Hindi word "ānā" for the coin comes from the same Sanskrit root, so the coin and the grain share a source even though their meanings diverged. Sixteen annas made up a rupee, which means the coin was a sixteenth of that unit, and the word's lineage runs from a staple of daily life to a unit of colonial currency.