percent
Americannoun
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Also called per centum. one one-hundredth part; 1/100.
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British. stocks, bonds, etc., that bear an indicated rate of interest.
adjective
Commonly Confused
In the senses “rate or proportion per hundred” and “proportion in general” percent and percentage are frequently interchangeable. With a preceding number, only percent occurs ( a 16 percent decline ); with no preceding number, either occurs, but percentage is much more common: a certain percentage (or percent ) of the land.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of percent
First recorded in 1560–70; short for Medieval Latin per centum “by the hundred”; see per, cent
Explanation
A percent is part of something, split into a hundred pieces. For example, fifty percent of forty is twenty. You'll hear a lot about percent and percentages in math. A percent can go from 0 percent to 100 percent. A percent is calculated by comparing a part of something compared to the whole. A baseball player's batting average is a percent. Athletes are known for talking about numbers that are impossible, like "I gave 110 percent!" You can do that in slang, but don't try it in math class.
Vocabulary lists containing percent
The SAT: Language of the Test, List 3
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Perfect Ten: Dec, Cent, Mille
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The New SAT: The Language of the Test
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Net bookings", the company's preferred revenue yardstick which excludes some deferred sales, was down slightly less in April-June, falling nine percent to 256 million euros.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
By common understanding, uranium must be enriched to a level of 20 percent purity to be deemed “highly enriched” and 90 percent to be “weapons-grade.”
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2026
The EU can slap fines of up to 10 percent of a company's total global turnover for breaching the DMA.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
During negotiations in February, Iran proposed restricting its enrichment to 3.67 percent and suspending all enrichment for five years.
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2026
A mortgage created in early 2005 might have a two-year “fixed” rate of 6 percent that, in 2007, would jump to 11 percent and provoke a wave of defaults.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
But if you’re willing to pile enough of those 2 percents together over 20 years, they can turn into seven diamond rings.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 12, 2021
“They are not accurate enough. I’m moving not well enough, so everything in my game, there are some percents missing. I don’t really know why.”
From New York Times ● May 30, 2021
Conduct a hypothesis test to determine if the population percents are the same for the two states or if the percent for Nevada is statistically higher than for North Dakota.
From Textbooks ● Nov. 29, 2017
Audiences tend to agree: a full 91 percent of them liked “Wonder Woman,” according to Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 63 and 62 percents for “Batman v. Superman” and “Suicide Squad,” respectively.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 30, 2017
Wearing it in class when the teacher droned on about fractions and percents.
From "The Lemonade War" by Jacqueline Davies
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.