The story
- Latin · borrowed fromsēstertius“that is two-and-a-half”
- English todaysestertius
From Latin sēstertius (“that is two-and-a-half”), from sēmis (“half”) + tertius (“third”), in which “third” refers to the third as: the sestertius was worth two full asses and half of a third.
Words from the same roots
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.