percent

English Online Dictionary. What means percent‎? What does percent mean?

English

Alternative forms

• %, pc, pct, p.c., p. c. (abbreviation)
• per cent (chiefly Commonwealth)
• per centum (law, US, dated)
• per cent. (archaic)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pəˈsɛnt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɚˈsɛnt/
• Rhymes: -ɛnt

Adverb

percent (not comparable)

1. For every hundred (used with preceding numeral to form a noun phrase expressing a proportion). [from 16th c.]

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.
• In the UK, per cent is the normal form.

Derived terms

Noun

percent (plural percent or percents)

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

2. One part per hundred; one percent, hundredth. [from 19th c.]
3. The percent sign, %.
4. An annuity or security with a certain fixed and guaranteed annual percentage rate of return or percentage dividend.

Derived terms

• percent-encode, percent-encoding

Translations

Prepositional phrase

percent

1. Per hundred.

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

Further reading

• “percent”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “percent”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• -nercept, precent

Chinese

Etymology

From English percent. Doublet of 巴仙 (bāxiān).

Pronunciation

Noun

percent

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) percent (Classifier: 個／个 c)

References

• English Loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese

French

Pronunciation

Verb

percent

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

Hungarian

Etymology

percen +‎ -t

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈpɛrt͡sɛnt]
• Hyphenation: per‧cent

Verb

percent

1. third-person singular indicative past indefinite of percen