percentile

English

Etymology

Coined by Francis Galton in 1885, from percent +‎ -ile.

Pronunciation

• enPR: pər-sĕnʹ-tīl, IPA^(key): /pəɹˈsɛn.taɪl/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /pɚˈsɛn.taɪl/
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /pəˈsɛn.taɪl/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛntaɪl

Noun

percentile (plural percentiles)

1. (statistics) Any of the ninety-nine points that divide an ordered distribution into one hundred parts, each containing one per cent of the population.
2. (statistics) Any one of the hundred groups so divided.

   She is highly intelligent—she has an IQ in the top percentile.

   • 2018 April 4, Elissa Strauss, “Growth charts for kids don’t measure up”, in CNN‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 April 2018:

     Also, doctors are much more interested in the relationship between the percentiles for weight and length than they are the numbers themselves. Healthy babies tend to land in somewhat similar percentiles for both metrics and are probably getting enough nutrition.
     This goes for those babies who don’t chart at all. Because it is impossible for researchers to determine what is the largest and smallest possible weight and length for babies, designers begin the charts at the fifth percentile and end them at the 95th percentile. This means 10% of babies are, like my son, unchartable.

Usage notes

When comparing performance, a higher percentile is better; to be in the "90th percentile" is to have performed better than 90% of the rest of the group.

Synonyms

• %ile

• centile

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

• equipercentile
• interpercentile
• percentile dice
• percentiler
• percentile rank

Translations

any of the ninety-nine points

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Czech: procentil m
• Danish: percentil c
• Estonian: protsentiil
• Finnish: persentiili (fi)
• German: Perzentil (de) n
• Indonesian: persentil (id), presentil (id)
• Italian: percentile (it) m
• Macedonian: перцентил m (percentil)
• Portuguese: percentil m
• Russian: перцентиль (ru) m (percentilʹ), центиль (ru) m (centilʹ), процентиль (ru) m (procentilʹ)
• Spanish: percentil (es) m
• Swedish: percentil (sv) c
• Tagalog: kabahagdanin

any one of the hundred groups so divided

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Czech: procentil m
• Danish: percentil c
• Estonian: protsentiil
• Finnish: persentiili (fi)
• German: Perzentil (de) n
• Indonesian: persentil (id), presentil (id)
• Italian: percentile (it) m
• Portuguese: percentil m
• Russian: перцентиль (ru) m (percentilʹ), центиль (ru) m (centilʹ), процентиль (ru) m (procentilʹ)
• Swedish: percentil (sv)
• Tagalog: kabahagdanin

Anagrams

• pencil tree

Italian

Etymology

From percento +‎ -ile.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /per.t͡ʃenˈti.le/
• Rhymes: -ile
• Hyphenation: per‧cen‧tì‧le

Noun

percentile m (plural percentili)

1. (statistics) percentile