You searched for: “percentage”
percent, per cent; percentage; percentile
percent, per cent (puhr SENT) (noun)
An amount that is equal to one one-hundredth of something: It is estimated that water covers more than 70 percent of the earth's surface.

Shelby is 99.9 percent sure that her version of the incident is accurate.

percentage (puhr SEN tij) (noun)
1. A share of the winnings of an undertaking: After taxes, Scott received a percentage of the profit from the sale of the property.

Camille was pleased with her percentage of the bet she made at the horse race in the afternoon.

2. Part of the whole of something presented in hundredths: Sally asked, "What is the percentage of winners in the lottery?"
percentile (puhr SENT tighl") (noun)
One of 100 equal parts that a group of people can be divided into in order to rank them: Larry's friend scored in the 95th percentile in advanced vocabulary skills.

Trina wonders what the percentage is of people who achieve a 100 percent on their driver's test. Her mother was in the top 75th percentile of her age when she took her last driver’s test.

This entry is located in the following unit: Confusing Words Clarified: Group P; Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs, Synonyms, Polysemes, etc. + (page 4)
percentage (s) (noun), percentages (pl)
1. A proportion stated in terms of one-hundredths that is calculated by multiplying a fraction by 100: If all of the apples were picked, if would be 100%, whereas if only half of the amount of apples were picked, it would be 50%, and if none of the apples were picked, 0% of the apples were picked.
2. A proportion or share in relation to a whole; a part: The hecklers constituted only a small percentage of the audience."
3. An amount, such as an allowance, duty, or commission, that varies in proportion to a larger sum, for example, total sales: They are working for a percentage of the gross sales.

When preceded by "the", percentage takes a singular verb:

The percentage of unskilled workers is relatively small.

The percentage of errors in his term paper is excessive.

When preceded by "a", percentage takes either a singular or plural verb, depending on the number of the noun in the prepositional phrase that follows:

A small percentage of the new workers are unskilled.

A large percentage of the crop was lost because of the lack of rain.

A large percentage of the electorate still remains undecided.

This entry is located in the following units: -age (page 2) centi-, cent- (page 3) per- (page 3)