sent

Pluralsenti, sents

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of send.

   The office sent refunds to every customer who complained.

   He had sent three emails before getting any reply.

   Note

   One form does two jobs: sent is both the simple past (they sent it) and the participle used after have or be (it has been sent). The ending is a -t in place of the stem's final -d, not a regular -ed. Every meaning of send carries over, including the slang 'thrill' sense (the music really sent her) and the archaic 'inflict' sense, as in a plague sent upon a city.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A subunit of Estonian currency equal to one hundredth of a kroon.

   Comparable to the cent against the dollar: the smallest denomination of the larger unit.

   The shopkeeper counted out the change down to the last sent.

   Each sent was worth one hundredth of a kroon in everyday transactions.

   Note

   English took this word directly from Estonian. It is a doublet of cent, the same coin name arriving by a different path. Its plural keeps the Estonian form, so ten of them are ten senti, not ten sents. It shares only its spelling with the past tense of send and the old spelling of scent.

3. 3
   nounobsoletecountable or uncountable

   Obsolete spelling of scent.

   Note

   An older spelling without the c. A reader of early texts may meet a line like the hounds lost the sent and should hear scent, not the verb. It covered the full range of scent: a smell, an animal's trail, perfume, even the faculty of smell, used as a countable or uncountable noun. Modern writing uses scent, and sent in this meaning now reads as a misprint outside quotation or pastiche.

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