the.com/percentile
The number that tells you how many people you've technically beaten.
means A value on a 0–100 scale showing what percentage of a dataset falls below it — so being in the 90th percentile means you outscored 90% of everyone else.
from Built in the 1800s from Latin 'per centum' ('by the hundred'), the same root that gave us 'percent,' plus the ordinal suffix '-ile' seen in 'quartile' and 'decile.' Statisticians coined it when they needed a way to slice ranked data into hundredths rather than just quarters or tenths — a bureaucratic word for a very human obsession with knowing exactly where you stand in the pack.
- 50th percentile
- literally just average, dressed up fancier
- 99th percentile
- still means one percent are doing better
- common mix-up
- not the same as percentage, despite appearances
- testing favorite
- used because raw scores alone compare poorly