Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

percentile

/pɚˈsɛn.taɪl/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.09 in modern English

Syllables: per-centile
IPA: /pɚˈsɛn.taɪl/

14

Scrabble Score

10

Letters

3

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Any of the ninety-nine points that divide an ordered distribution into one hundred parts, each containing one per cent of the population.

noun

Any one of the hundred groups so divided.

Example Sentences

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

Etymology

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

Word Breakdown

Suffix: percent

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /pɚˈsɛn.taɪl/
British English: /pəˈsɛn.taɪl/

Inflected Forms

percentiles (plural)

Derived Forms

equipercentile interpercentile percentiler

Phrases

percentile dice percentile rank

Frequently Paired Words

median (2-quantile) tercile tertile quartile pentile quintile sextile septile

Synonyms

%ile centile

Rhymes With

gentile

Questions

How do you pronounce percentile?: The recorded pronunciation is /pɚˈsɛn.taɪl/.
What does percentile mean?: Any of the ninety-nine points that divide an ordered distribution into one hundred parts, each containing one per cent of the population.
Where does percentile come from?: Coined by Francis Galton in 1885, from percent + -ile.

How to pronounce percentile

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “percentile”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/pɚˈsɛn.taɪl/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “percentile”.
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