Other forms: ratios
A ratio is the relationship between two amounts, expressed as a comparison. A ratio of three to one, the staff to student ratio, in the ratio 2:3.
It is written with a colon — 2:1 — or spoken as two to one. A ratio compares quantities of the same kind, while a rate compares different ones, such as miles per hour. Common ones have names: the aspect ratio of a screen, the debt to equity ratio, the golden ratio. Note that the plural is ratios and that ratio has three syllables in British English, RAY-shee-oh.
1nounratioThe relationship between two amounts, as a comparison.
“The ratio of boys to girls in the class is three to one.”
ratio is a comparison of amounts.
Latin ratio meant reckoning, reason, or a calculation — from reri, to reckon. It gives reason, rational, rate and ration. Mathematics kept the narrow sense of a calculated comparison; everything else took the reasoning.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂er-
Latin
ratiō
English, today
ratio
Latin ratiō. a doublet of ration and reason.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA