noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Any of the ninety-nine points that divide an ordered distribution into one hundred parts, each containing one per cent of the population.
2. 2
   (statistics) any of the 99 numbered points that divide an ordered set of scores into 100 parts each of which contains one-hundredth of the total wordnet
3. 3
   Any one of the hundred groups so divided.

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

Synonyms

All synonyms

centile%ilecentilemedian

Example

More examples

"Tom is in the first percentile for maths in Australia."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

percentile dicepercentile rankper cent

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.