Definition of "percentile" [percentile]

• One of a set of points on a scale arrived at by dividing a group into parts in order of magnitude. For example, a score equal to or greater than 97 percent of those attained on an examination is said to be in the 97th percentile. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs."
• "` ` Mid-70 percentile is not going to be good enough."
• "Apparently he defines good teachers as those whose students improved the most in percentile rank over the school year and bad teachers as those whose students dropped the most in percentile rank over the school year, which seems like it would grossly exaggerate the performance difference between good and bad teachers, because the teacher is just one tiny variable in a system with a lot of noise — and because percentile scores aren’t z-scores."