Meaning & use
percentage
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
An amount or rate expressed as a part of 100.
Grammar: Countable: use 'a percentage' or 'percentages'. Followed by 'of': a percentage of the total.
Patterns
- a percentage of something
- a high/low percentage
A high percentage of students passed the exam.
The percentage of women in science has increased.
What percentage of your income goes to rent?
nouncountable
A share or proportion of something, not necessarily exact.
Grammar: Often used in business to mean 'a cut' or 'a share'.
Patterns
- a percentage of the profits
- earn a percentage
The agent earns a percentage of each sale.
Only a small percentage of the population voted.
She gets a percentage of the royalties.
Word forms
| plural | percentages |
|---|
Common combinations
- a high percentage
- A high percentage of workers commute by car.
- a low percentage
- Only a low percentage of applicants were accepted.
- percentage point
- The rate rose by two percentage points.
- on a percentage basis
- The fee is calculated on a percentage basis.
Synonyms and how they differ
- proportion
- More general; can be expressed as a fraction or ratio, not only out of 100.
- share
- Focuses on a part given to someone or belonging to someone.
- rate
- Often a measure over time, like 'birth rate'; not always out of 100.
Word family
- percent noun
- one part in every hundred, used with a number
- percentile noun
- a value below which a certain percentage of a group falls
Commonly confused: percentage or percent?
percentage vs percent
'Percent' is used after a number (40 percent), while 'percentage' stands alone (a high percentage).
Practice
Choose the correct sentence.
Choose one answer.
'Percentage' is a noun meaning a part of 100 and is followed by 'of' plus a plural noun; the verb agrees with 'people', so 'own' is correct. 'Percent' cannot stand alone with 'a large', and 'percentage people' misses 'of'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “percentage”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.