Hecto prefix

While hecto, deka, deci, and centi are SI prefixes, their use should generally be avoided except for the SI unit-multiples for area and volume and nontechnical use of centimeter, as for body and clothing measurement. The prefix hecto should be avoided also because the longhand symbol h may be... 

Decimal Multiples and Submultiples of SI Units In practical application of SI units, certain values are too large or too small to be expressed conveniently in the base or derived units. Numerical values can be brought to convenient size when the unit is appropriately modified by official SI prefixes. In general the prefixes are such that the value of the unit changes 1000-fold. However, certain common previously accepted multiples or sub multiples, such as deci- and hecto-, are still accepted in the SI framework. The SI prefixes are listed in Table 1-5 together with their symbols. 

Prefix deca hecto kilo mega giga tera... 

Nearly all of the SI prefixes are multiples or sub-multiples of 1000. However, these are inconvenient for many purposes and so hecto, deca, deci, and centi are also used. 

Most prefixes which make a unit bigger are written in capital letters (M, G, T, etc.), but when they make a unit smaller then lower case (m, n, p, etc.) is used. Exceptions to this are the kilo [k] to avoid any possible confusion with kelvin [K] hecto [h] and deca [da] or [dk]. 

Hecto- combining form [F, irreg. fr. Gk hekaton] (h) n. The SI prefix meaning xlOO. 

Common prefixes for metric units—which may apply in more cases than shown below—include giga- (1 billion times the unit), mega- (one million times), kih- (1,000 times), hecto- (100 times), deka- (10 times), deci- (0.1 times, or one tenth), centi-(0.01, or one hundredth), milli- (0.001, or one thousandth), and micro- (0.0001, or one millionth). 

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