quartile

English

Etymology

From Middle French quartil, from Medieval Latin quartilus. By surface analysis, quart +‎ -ile.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwɔː(ɹ)taɪl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

quartile (plural quartiles)

1. (statistics) Any of the three points that divide an ordered distribution into four parts, each containing a quarter of the population.
2. (statistics) Any one of the four groups so divided.

   This school is ranked in the first quartile.

   • 2021 July 28, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Confusion and dissent over face mask requirements: Reaction to the Guidance: British Safety Council”, in RAIL, number 936, page 6:

     The Department for Transport's National Travel Survey shows that workers in the lowest income quartile are twice as likely to use public transport.

   • 2023 July 18, Elisabeth Buchwald, “Americans aren’t rebuilding their savings fast enough”, in CNN Business‎^[1], archived from the original on 17 August 2023:

     In June 2021, the top-income quartile of Chase customers had a median cash buffer of 43 days, while the lowest-income quartile had a median cash buffer of 22 days.

   • 2024 November 15, Kristen Rogers, “Want to live an extra 5 to 10 years? Adopt this habit, study suggests”, in CNN‎^[2], archived from the original on 11 July 2025:

     Total activity levels in the lowest quartile were equivalent to walking for 49 minutes at roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) per hour daily. Total activity levels in the second-, third- and fourth-highest quartiles were equivalent to 78, 105 and 160 minutes, respectively.

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

• interquartile
• intraquartile
• lower quartile
• semiquartile
• upper quartile

Derived terms

• interquartile range

Translations

any of the three points

• Catalan: quartil (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 四分位數 / 四分位数 (zh) (sìfēnwèishù)

• Czech: kvartil m
• Danish: kvartil c
• Estonian: kvartiil
• Finnish: kvartiili (fi)
• French: quartile (fr) m
• Galician: cuartil (gl)
• German: Quartil n
• Indonesian: kuartil (id)
• Italian: quartile (it)
• Māori: hauwhātanga
• Portuguese: quartil (pt) m
• Spanish: cuartil (es)
• Swedish: kvartil (sv) c
• Welsh: chwartel m

any of the four groups

• Catalan: quartil (ca)
• Danish: kvartil c
• Estonian: kvartiil
• Finnish: kvartiili (fi)
• French: quartile (fr) m
• Galician: cuartil (gl)
• Indonesian: kuartil (id)
• Portuguese: quartil (pt) m
• Swedish: kvartil (sv)
• Welsh: chwartel m

Verb

quartile (third-person singular simple present quartiles, present participle quartiling, simple past and past participle quartiled)

1. (transitive) To divide into quartiles.

References

• “quartile”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• requital

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kaʁ.til/

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: quar‧tile

Noun

quartile m (plural quartiles)

1. quartile

Further reading

• “quartile”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012