Other forms: percentages
A percentage is a share expressed out of a hundred. A high percentage, what percentage, a percentage of the profits.
The symbol is the per cent sign, and per cent is written as two words in British English and one in American. A percentage point is not the same as a per cent: going from four per cent to five is a rise of one percentage point and of twenty-five per cent, which is the single commonest confusion in reporting numbers. Note percentile, which is a different thing entirely, and that a percentage of something needs a base to be meaningful.
1nounpercentageA share expressed out of a hundred.
“A high percentage of them never replied at all.”
2nounprofitsA share of profits or takings.
“He takes a percentage and it is not a small one.”
percentage is a proportion.
Latin per centum means for every hundred. Per cent entered English in the sixteenth century and percentage was built on it in the eighteenth, when commercial arithmetic needed a noun for the idea.
Latin
per centum — for every hundred
English, today
percentage
From percent, from Latin per centum (“for every hundred”), + -age.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA