dime: [14] Dime originally meant ‘tenth part’, and often specifically a ‘tax of one tenth, tithe’: ‘From all times it was ordained to pay dimes or tithes unto the Lord’, James Howell, Lexicon tetraglotton 1660. It came via Old French disme from Latin decima ‘tenth part’, a derivative of decem ‘ten’ (to which English ten is related). The application of the word to a coin worth one tenth of a US dollar dates from the 1780s. => decimal, ten[dime etymology, dime origin, 英语词源]