Illustration from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, article C.

As a numeral C denotes 100. This use is borrowed from Latin, in which the symbol was originally [fig] a form of the Greek θ. This, like the numeral symbols later identified with L and M, was thus utilized since it was not required as a letter, there being no sound in Latin corresponding to the Greek θ. Popular etymology identified the symbol with the initial letter of centum, "hundred."

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