percentage

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /pəˈsen.tɪdʒ/, US /pɚˈsen.t̬ɪdʒ/^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English percent + -age.^[2][3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A rate or proportion per hundred: 1757 in MWU and the Historical Thesaurus,^[3][6] 1786–9 in the OED, 1789 in Etymonline.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Any proportion of a whole is a later, looser use.^[4][8] The informal sense “profit, advantage, likely benefit” is from 1862, originally American.^[2][6][7] Play the percentages, to act on the odds, is slang from 1964.^[7]

Timeline

• 1757 – a rate per hundred.^[3][6]
• 1862 – advantage, profit.^[2][7]
• 1964 – play the percentages.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An amount expressed as a number of parts in every hundred.
2. A part or proportion of a whole.
3. A share of the profits, such as a commission.
4. (informal) Advantage or profit.

Word family

• percentaged
• percentage point
• slugging percentage

Related words

• percent
• percentile
• permillage
• cent
• century

Usage notes

After the, percentage takes a singular verb (the percentage of unskilled workers is small); after a, the verb agrees with the noun that follows (a small percentage of the workers are unskilled).^[9]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin