# Percentile

*Math & Statistics — Finicade finance glossary*

A percentile is the value below which a given share of observations falls — the 90th percentile has 90% of the data beneath it. It's the natural language of risk: Value at Risk is a percentile of the loss distribution, and salary benchmarking and credit scoring are both percentile statements. Percentiles are robust to outliers, which is precisely why they're used where averages mislead.

**Also known as:** percentile rank, quantile

**Related terms:** [Value at Risk (VaR)](https://finicade.com/glossary/value-at-risk), [Median Income](https://finicade.com/glossary/median-income), [Interquartile Range](https://finicade.com/glossary/interquartile-range), [Mean, Median and Mode](https://finicade.com/glossary/mean-median-mode), [Probability Distribution](https://finicade.com/glossary/probability-distribution)

Source: https://finicade.com/glossary/percentile