What is centigrade? How to use in English

The term "centigrade" may seem like a complicated scientific term, but its origin is actually quite straightforward. The word consists of two Latin roots: "centi" meaning "hundred," and "gradus," meaning "step" or "degree." Applying these Latin roots to the word's meaning, "centigrade" directly translates to "hundred-step scale" or "hundred degree scale." This is a reference to the original design of the temperature scale, where the freezing point of water was defined as 0 degrees, and its boiling point as 100 degrees - resulting in a scale of 100 steps or degrees to represent the full range of temperatures. As a side note, in 1961 the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) officially renamed the centigrade scale as the Celsius scale, after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius, who first proposed a temperature scale with fixed roots at 0 and 100 degrees. However, its original name remains widely used and understood by many, serving as a nostalgic reminder of the lead-up to modern-day measurements.