Percentage

How to spell percentage

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce percentage

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does percentage mean?

1. nounA proportion or rate expressed as a number of parts in every hundred.

Percentage in a sentence

• A large percentage of the staff chose to work from home on Fridays.

• The bank calculated the interest as a fixed percentage of the balance.

Where does percentage come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the Latin phrase per centum, which literally meant 'by the hundred' or 'for each hundred'. Merchants and accountants used the abbreviated form per cent for centuries when stating rates and proportions, and by the late eighteenth century English speakers added the familiar noun-forming suffix -age (the same ending seen in 'mileage' and 'postage') to create 'percentage', a single word naming a proportion expressed in parts per hundred. The 'cent' element is the very same Latin root for hundred that gives us 'century', 'centurion', and the coin called a cent. The spelling trap lives in the middle: writers comfortable with the symbol % sometimes forget the silent rhythm of the unstressed first syllable and the single 't' before -age. The word arrived fully formed in commercial English and has stayed strictly tied to numerical proportion ever since.

How the word is built

• per- (Latin: by, for each)
• cent (from centum: hundred)
• -age (noun-forming suffix)