adj. and sb. phr.
A. as adj. a. Yielding 3 per cent. interest (see B.). b. Containing three parts in every hundred.
1753. Bank of Eng. Dividend Bk., 5 Jan. 3 per cent. consolidated annuities.
1796. Cnt. Rumford, in Phil. Trans., LXXXVII. 215. In the three per cent. consolidated public funds of this country.
1880. Barwell, Aneurism, i. 12. I … placed them in a three-per-cent. solution of carbolic acid.
B. as sb. (absol. use of A. a). In pl. three per cents, the Government securities of Great Britain, consolidated in 1751 into a single stock paying 3 per cent. interest: see CONSOLIDATED b.
In 1888 the interest on the consolidated stock (consols) was reduced to 23/4 per cent., and in 1903 to 21/2 per cent., so that the name, so long familiar, ceased to be applicable.
1794. G. Rose, Diaries (1860), I. 195. We borrow in the Three Per Cents.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., Introd. There were two thousand three per cents as much lost to my family as if the sponge had been drawn over the national slate.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1868), I. 266. Annuities and Three per Cents., Little cares he about them.
1905. Harmsw. Encycl., 1562/2. In 1888 … the 3 per cents. outstanding were … £549,094,000.
