decile

See also: décile

English

Etymology

From Latin decilis, equivalent to dec- +‎ -ile.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): [ˈdɛsaɪɫ], [ˈdiːsaɪɫ]

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɛs.əl/, /ˈdɛsˌaɪl/
• Rhymes: (US) -ɛsəl

Noun

decile (plural deciles)

1. (statistics) Any of the values in a series that divides the distribution of individuals in that series into ten groups of equal frequency.

   Although few people scored high marks, everyone did quite well—the lowest decile was over 50%.

2. Any one of the ten subsets or groups so divided.

   Our school is in the top decile for exam results.

   • 2017 July 12, Jay L. Zagorsky, Patricia Smith, “No, poor people don’t eat the most fast food”, in CNN‎^[1], archived from the original on 9 March 2024:

     Overall, 79 percent of respondents said they ate fast food at least once during the three weeks. Breaking it down by income deciles (groups of 10 percent of aggregate household income) did not show big differences.

   • 2023 May 2, Jessie Yeung, “One of the world’s most expensive cities raises minimum wage … by 32 cents”, in CNN Business‎^[2], archived from the original on 24 April 2025:

     “The incomes of the poorest decile fell by more than 20% compared to their incomes before the Covid outbreak,” it said in a statement at the time, pointing to other issues such as significant unemployment among those living in poverty.

   • 2024 March 21, Matt Egan, “10% of US workers are in jobs most exposed to artificial intelligence, White House says”, in CNN Business‎^[3], archived from the original on 2 June 2025:

     The report found that nearly 40% of workers in the third decile of earnings have high-AI exposure and low performance requirements.

   • 2025 September 18, Alicia Wallace, “The Fed just cut rates. But relief might not come quickly enough for some Americans”, in CNN Business‎^[4], archived from the original on 19 November 2025:

     “The business cycle is always super depressing when we think about the different parts of the income distribution, because the lowest decile … in every single recession, they fall further and further behind,” said Tyler Schipper, an associate professor of economics and data analytics at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

3. (astrology) An aspect or position of two planets when they are distant from each other a tenth part of the zodiac.

Hypernyms

• quantile

Coordinate terms

• (statistics):
• median (2-quantile), tercile/tertile (3), quartile (4), pentile/quintile (5), sextile (6), septile (7), octile (8), decile (10), hexadecile (16), ventile/vigintile (20), centile/percentile (100), millile/permillile (1000)

Derived terms

• deciler
• interdecile
• low decile

Translations

value

• Danish: decil c
• Finnish: desiili (fi), kymmenespiste
• French: décile (fr) m
• German: Dezil (de) n
• Indonesian: desil (id)
• Māori: hautekautanga
• Portuguese: decil m
• Spanish: decil (es) m
• Swedish: decil (sv) c
• Tagalog: kasampuin

subset

• Finnish: desiili (fi), kymmenes (fi)
• French: décile (fr) m
• Indonesian: desil (id)
• Portuguese: decil m
• Spanish: decil (es) m
• Tagalog: kasampuin

Anagrams

• ceiled, cieled, delice

Italian

Noun

decile m (plural decili)

1. (mathematics) decile
2. (organic chemistry) decyl

Related terms

• (organic chemistry): decano

Spanish

Verb

decile

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of decir combined with le