Since the 19th century, the scientific and thermometry communities worldwide referred to this scale as the centigrade scale. Temperatures on the centigrade scale were often reported simply as degrees or, when greater specificity was desired, as degrees centigrade (symbol: °C).
Because the term centigrade was also the Spanish and French language name for a unit of angular measurement (1/100 of a right angle) and had a similar connotation in other languages, the term centesimal degree (known as the gradian, "grad" or "gon": 1ᵍ = 0.9°, 100ᵍ = 90°) was used when very precise, unambiguous language was required by international standards bodies such as the BIPM.
More properly, what was defined as "centigrade" then would now be "hectograde". Furthermore, in the context here, centigrade/hectograde is referring to the whole 0-100 range, not the given part thereof, hence "20° centigrade" means "20ᵍ per 100 gradians" (or 20% hectograde), not its literal description, "0.2 gradians".