Mill sign
The mill or mille (₥) (sometimes mil in the UK, when discussing property taxes in the United States, or previously in Cyprus and Malta) is a now-abstract unit of currency used sometimes in accounting. In the United States, it is a notional unit equivalent to 1⁄1000 of a United States dollar (a one-hundredth of a dime or a tenth of a cent). In the United Kingdom it was proposed during the decades of discussion on the decimalization of the pound as a 1⁄1000 division of the pound sterling. Several other currencies used the mill, such as the Maltese lira.
The term comes from the Latin "millesimum", meaning "thousandth part".
In the United States, the term was first used by the Continental Congress in 1786, being described as the "lowest money of account, of which 1000 shall be equal to the federal dollar."
The Coinage Act of 1792 describes milles and other subdivisions of the dollar:
That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and milles or thousandths, a disme being the tenth part of a dollar, a cent the hundredth part of a dollar, a mille the thousandth part of a dollar, and that all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation.
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