a former copper coin of Pakistan and India
"The old man carefully folded his pocketful of annas to pay for the roadside fruit stand."
A unit of currency in former British India equal to 12 pies or ¹⁄₁₆ rupee.
"The merchant counted out a handful of annas as change for the expensive spices he had just purchased at the bazaar."
In plain English: An anna is an old Indian coin worth half of a rupee.
"The little girl saved her weekly allowance in an old jar labeled Anna."
Usage: Use "anna" only when referring to the historical Indian coin that was worth one-sixteenth of a rupee. Do not use it as a generic term for any small amount of money in modern English.
A female given name from Hebrew.
"The teacher announced that Anna, a popular name of Hebrew origin, had been selected for the student council presidency."
The word anna comes from the Hindi words ann, meaning food or grain, and ānā. It traveled into English via Indian coinage to represent a small unit of currency.