Etymology From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).
1
US For every hundred (used with preceding numeral to form a noun phrase expressing a proportion).
Diane Watson has had a distinguished career in education and politics, and last year was elected to the House of Representatives, winning 75 percent of the vote in her Congressional district.2002 May 8, Leon Jaroff, Time:
In Sichuan the rates were much higher. In Kaixian county, a close examination by a team sent by the provincial party committee at the time concluded that in Fengle commune, where 17 per cent of the population had perished in less than a year, up to 65 per cent of the victims had died because they were beaten, punished with food deprivation or forced into committing suicide.2011, Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 297–298:
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Twelve percent of the world’s population now relies directly or indirectly on the fisheries industry.2016 July 7, Arthur Neslen, “Global fish production approaching sustainable limit, UN warns”, in The Guardian:
A 2013 study found the HIV rate among injecting IPED users in England and Wales was 1.5 percent, comparable to 1.2 percent among users of psychoactive drugs like heroin and crack.2022 June 28, Jamie Millar, “'SARM Goblins': The Young Men Hooked on Steroids”, in VICE, archived from the original on 07 Nov 2023:
Etymology From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).
1
A percentage, a proportion (especially per hundred).
only a small percent attain the top ranks
2
One part per hundred; one percent, hundredth.
And from 1966, under Regulation Q, there was a ceiling of 5.5 per cent on their deposit rates, a quarter of a per cent more than banks were allowed to pay.2008, Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money, Penguin, page 254:
3
The percent sign, %.
4
An annuity or security with a certain fixed and guaranteed annual percentage rate of return or percentage dividend.
[…]Several stocks in the Three Per Cents and Three Per Cents Reduced to be transferred into the name and to the credit of the prosecutor, without any authority to him (the traverser) to sell, negotiate, transfer or pledge the said 9000l. Three-and-a-Quarter per Cent. Annuities.1848, Edward W. Cox, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law, editor, Reports of Cases in Criminal Law Argued and Determined in All the Courts of England and Ireland: Volume II 1868 to 1848, page 371:
Why, from the pleasant and businesslike manner in which the transaction is carried out, it might be a large purchase in the three per cents. Yet what a piece of work a man makes of his first "pop."1886, Jerome K. Jerome, “On Being Hard Up”, in Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow:
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picking up on a phrase that was used as early as 1752, Benjamin Disraeli famously referred to the “sweet simplicity of the three percents in his novel Endymion (1880) because of the reliable dividend this form of investment provided.2018, Nancy Henry, Women, Literature and Finance in Victorian Britain: Cultures of Investment, page 33:
Etymology From New Latin per centum (“by the hundred”).
1
Per hundred.
By how many percent did the cancer survival rate for breast cancer increase by 2008?2014, Alan Tussy, Diane Koenig, Basic Mathematics for College Students with Early Integers, →ISBN, page 637: