paisa

paisa — noun

1. a small coin used in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, worth one-hundredth

1.noun
Definition

a small coin used in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, worth one-hundredth of one rupee (or, in Bangladesh, one taka); the irregular plural form is 'paise'.

Example

The shopkeeper in Mumbai dropped a single paisa into the wooden donation box.

countable singular: a / one paisa

Anika counted fifty paise in copper coins on her grandmother's kitchen table.

irregular plural form: paise

Common collocations
  • a few paise
  • fifty paise
  • twenty-five paise coin
  • paise to a rupee
Synonyms
  • cent

    the equivalent in dollar-based currencies — same '1/100 of the main unit' role

  • penny

    British and Irish equivalent in pence-based currencies

Grammar Patterns

a paisa / one paisa

fifty paise (plural)

Usage Note

Singular form is 'paisa'; plural is the irregular 'paise', not 'paisas'. When used before another noun (e.g. 'a fifty-paisa coin'), the singular form stays even with a number greater than one.

Common Mistakes

I gave him five paisas.
I gave him five paise.
the plural is 'paise', not 'paisas'.
a hundred paise coin
a hundred-paise coin' or 'a one-rupee coin
when modifying a noun, hyphenate; but 100 paise are usually called a rupee.

Word family

  • paise
    noun (plural)
  • rupee
    nounB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Paisa, cent, and penny all name a small fractional coin worth one-hundredth of a country's main currency unit, but each belongs to a specific monetary system. Paisa is used in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, where one hundred paise make up a rupee or taka — note the irregular plural 'paise'. Cent is the standard subunit in US, Canadian, Australian, and euro-using countries; the plural is the regular 'cents'. Penny refers to the British or Irish subunit, with the irregular plural 'pence' for amounts and 'pennies' for individual coins. Rupee, by contrast, is not a fractional unit but the main currency itself, of which the paisa is a fraction. So you might say, 'She paid two rupees and fifty paise', but never 'two paise and fifty rupees', since paise are always the smaller part.

paisa ↗cent ↗penny ↗rupee ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • paisa coin
  • paise per rupee

Phrases

  • a few paise
  • every last paisa
  • down to the last paisa

Prepositions

  • in paise
  • to the paisa

Etymology

SanskritHindiEnglish

The word entered English in the late 1700s from Hindi 'paisā', which itself goes back to Sanskrit 'padāṁśa', a compound meaning 'a quarter part' (from 'pada' = foot or quarter, plus 'aṁśa' = part). Originally the paisa was one-quarter of an anna, the older subunit of the rupee. After India and Pakistan reformed their currencies in the late 1950s, the paisa was redefined as one-hundredth of a rupee, matching the decimal system used in most modern currencies.