Other forms: percentiles
A percentile is where a child's size sits compared with others. The fiftieth percentile, drop a percentile, on the ninetieth percentile.
A child on the fiftieth percentile is exactly average for age; on the ninetieth, larger than nine in ten. What matters clinically is the trend rather than the number — a child staying on a line is fine wherever the line is, and one crossing several downward is not. Note that percentiles are also used for exam results and for response times in engineering.
1nounpercentileThe position of a value compared with a whole population.
“Her son's height is in the ninetieth percentile for his age.”
percentile is a statistical position.
Percent plus -ile, coined by Francis Galton in 1885 as he was inventing much of modern statistics. Quartile and decile are built on the same pattern.
New Latin
per centum — by the hundred
English
percent
English, today
percentile
coined by Francis Galton in 1885, from percent + -ile. percent comes from New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA