quartile

noun

quar·​tile ˈkwȯr-ˌtī(-ə)l 

-tᵊl

: any of the three values that divide the items of a frequency distribution into four classes with each containing one fourth of the total population

also : any one of the four classes

Did you know?

A quartile is a quarter of a specific group that has been tested or evaluated in specific ways. The first quartile is the one that scores highest and the fourth quartile scores lowest. For achievement and proficiency tests, the first quartile is the place to be; for blood pressure or cholesterol, the third quartile is healthier.

Examples of quartile in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In contrast, teams in the bottom quartile have markets with fewer than 1.32 million households, effectively half the reach of the league average. —Giovanni Malloy, Forbes.com, 26 June 2025

Its trailing 5-year return is also in the top quartile. —Michelle Fox, CNBC, 25 June 2025

The importance of this is that, at senior elite levels, there is an equal distribution of birth quartile (players born in all four quarters of the year are fairly evenly represented). —Liam Tharme, New York Times, 7 June 2025

In one school, 99th Street Elementary, test scores jumped from bottom quartiles to the top in 2010, according to Tingirides. —Paul Solotaroff, Rolling Stone, 11 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

International Scientific Vocabulary, from Latin quartus

First Known Use

1879, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for quartile

• mortal
• immortal