different between percentage vs percent

English

Etymology

From Latin per centum (“for every hundred”), +? -age.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /p??s?nt?d??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /p??s?nt?d??/
• Hyphenation: per?cent?age

Noun

percentage (plural percentages)

1. The amount, number or rate of something, regarded as part of a total of 100; a part of a whole.

   A high percentage of secondary school leavers take a gap year.

2. A share of the sales, profits, gross margin or similar.

   She gets a percentage for every vacuum cleaner sold.

3. (informal) Benefit or advantage.

   There was no percentage in staying at home.

Usage notes

• A percentage is often denoted by the character (%).

Ex. 50% denotes 50 per cent.

Derived terms

Related terms

• percent
• percentile

Translations

Dutch

Alternative forms

• procentage (archaic)

Etymology

From percent +? -age. Cf. English percentage, French percentage.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?r.s?n?ta?.??/
• Hyphenation: per?cen?ta?ge
• Rhymes: -a???

Noun

percentage n (plural percentages)

1. percentage (amount or rate as part of 100)

English

Alternative forms

• p. c., p.c., pc, pct (abbreviation)
• per cent (mostly UK)
• per cent. (archaic)
• per centum

Etymology

From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p??s?nt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p??s?nt/
• Rhymes: -?nt

Adverb

percent (not comparable)

1. For every hundred (used with preceding numeral to form a noun phrase expressing a proportion). [from 16th c.]
   • 2002, Leon Jaroff, Time, 8 May:

     Diane Watson has had a distinguished career in education and politics, and last year was elected to the House of Representatives, winning 75 percent of the vote in her Congressional district.

   • 2016, Arthur Neslen, The Guardian, 7 July:

     Twelve percent of the world’s population now relies directly or indirectly on the fisheries industry.

Usage notes

• A percentage is often denoted by the character %.

  50% denotes 50 percent.

• The difference of two percentages is measured by percentage point, not by percent.

Derived terms

• percentage
• percentual
• percentwise

Noun

percent (plural percent or percents)

1. A percentage, a proportion (especially per hundred).

2. One part per hundred; one percent. [from 19th c.]
   • 2008, Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money, Penguin 2008, p. 254:

     And from 1966, under Regulation Q, there was a ceiling of 5.5 per cent on their deposit rates, a quarter of a per cent more than banks were allowed to pay.

Translations

Prepositional phrase

percent

1. Per hundred.
   • 2014, Alan Tussy, Diane Koenig, Basic Mathematics for College Students with Early Integers (?ISBN), page 637:

     By how many percent did the cancer survival rate for breast cancer increase by 2008?

Usage notes

• Percent/per cent originated as a shortening of the Latin phrase per centum, “per hundred”, and historically the use of the word as a noun (as in “half a percent” or “percents”) was regarded as an error, though such use has now become so common that it is recognized by all other major dictionaries, and a few treat the word as being only a noun. Of those which recognize non-nounal uses, most label it an adverb and many also label it an adjective though it does not meet tests of adjectivity.

See also

• per mille, permille, ‰
• per myriad, ?
• ppm, ppb, ppt, ppq

Typography

References

• percent at OneLook Dictionary Search
• percent in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• -nercept, precent

French

Verb

percent

1. third-person plural present indicative of percer
2. third-person plural present subjunctive of percer

Hungarian

Etymology

percen +? -t

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?p?rt?s?nt]
• Hyphenation: per?cent

Verb

percent

1. third-person singular indicative past indefinite of percen