A quarter is called two bits because the Spanish silver dollar that circulated in early America was worth eight reales, each real was nicknamed a bit, and two of those eight bits equal one quarter of a dollar, or 25 cents.
The slang comes from a silver coin that people really did chop into wedges to make change.
"Shave and a haircut, two bits." Most people can finish that tune without knowing what a bit is. The answer is simple arithmetic. A bit was one eighth of a dollar, so two bits is two eighths, which is one quarter. That is 25 cents.
The odd part is why anyone counted dollars in eighths in the first place. For that you need a Spanish coin and a chisel.
Long before the United States minted its own money, the most trusted coin in the Americas was the Spanish silver dollar. Its Spanish name was the real de a ocho, the "piece of eight," because it was worth eight smaller coins called reales.
English speakers called one real a bit. So the math went like this:
When Congress set up the US dollar in 1792, it modeled it on the Spanish dollar. The two were close enough in silver that people used them side by side. Spanish dollars stayed legal tender in the United States until 1857, so three generations of Americans grew up counting in bits.
Yes. Small change was scarce in the colonies and on the frontier. If you owed someone a quarter dollar and had only a whole one, a common fix was to cut the coin. Halve it, halve the halves, and halve those again, and you get eight pie-shaped wedges. Each wedge was one bit.
A Spanish dollar weighed about 27 grams, so a fair bit weighed a little under 3.5 grams. That "fair" matters. A wedge cut by hand is only as honest as the person holding the chisel. Accounts from the period describe people slicing a dollar into nine or ten "eighths" and pocketing the extra silver. A careful shopkeeper kept a small scale for exactly this reason.
It is the same problem as cutting a pizza for eight people, with real money riding on every slice.
| Slang | Fraction of a dollar | Cents |
|---|---|---|
| One bit | 1/8 | 12.5 |
| Two bits | 1/4 | 25 |
| Four bits | 1/2 | 50 |
| Six bits | 3/4 | 75 |
| Eight bits | 1 | 100 |
Notice that nobody says "three bits" or "five bits." The slang stuck to the amounts that matched real US coins: the quarter, the half dollar and the dollar. Six bits survived mostly in songs and cheers, like the old "two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar."
The United States went decimal. A dollar was 100 cents, and the mint struck a dime worth 10 cents. It never struck a 12.5 cent coin. That left one bit with no coin to match it.
In the West, people patched the gap with two more pieces of slang:
If a drink cost one bit and you paid with a quarter, you got a dime in change, so the drink cost you 15 cents. Buy two at once for two bits and you paid 12.5 cents each. Buying in pairs was the smart move.
Cutting a coin into eight honest wedges takes three clean halvings in a row. Each one is harder than it looks. Miss the first cut by a little and every piece after it is off.
That skill is the whole of Halfsies, a free daily game with a Wild West theme. Each day you cut three hand-drawn objects in half by eye, and a scale weighs both pieces. Your score for a cut is the lighter half divided by the heavier half, times 100, so three perfect cuts make 300. Weight follows the drawn area of the object, so a thin handle counts for little.
The game even has its own nod to the bit. About one run in ten ends in a bonus round. In Quarters you make three cuts to turn one object into four equal pieces. In Small Change you make one cut that slices off exactly 25%. That is two bits, by eye.
You can play today's three cuts in your browser with no download.
Two bits is 25 cents, one quarter of a dollar. One bit was one eighth of a dollar, or 12.5 cents.
The Spanish silver dollar used in early America was worth eight reales, and each real was called a bit. Two of those eight bits make one quarter of a dollar.
It is the Spanish silver dollar, called the real de a ocho because it was worth eight reales. It was the model for the US dollar and was legal tender in the United States until 1857.
Four bits is 50 cents and six bits is 75 cents. Eight bits is a full dollar.
No. The US mint never made a 12.5 cent coin. In the West a dime often passed as a "short bit" to fill the gap.
Think you could cut a dollar into honest eighths? Start with one clean half.