quintile

noun

quin·​tile ˈkwin-ˌtī(-ə)l 

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

also : any one of the five classes

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Breaking Down the Meaning of Quintile

Many people have a deep interest in statistics about themselves, whether the information provided is about income, ice-cream consumption, or trash production. And any such rating can be divided into fifths, or quintiles. The fifth or lowest quintile would include the 20 percent of the population who make the least money or eat the least ice cream or generate the least trash, and the first quintile would include the 20 percent who make, eat, or generate the most.

Examples of quintile in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Breaking it down even further, Parker found that stocks in the two lowest payout ratio quintiles have performed best over the past five years and that dividend increases work best for high-cash and cheap companies. —Michelle Fox, CNBC, 4 May 2026

And according to Federal Reserve data, wages have also grown steadily (much of it in the lower four quintiles during the Biden administration). —Jonathan M. Gitlin, ArsTechnica, 1 May 2026

Goldman Sachs finds that households in the lowest income quintile spend roughly four times as much on gasoline as a share of after-tax income compared to those at the top. —Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 21 Apr. 2026

For the bottom 60 percent, much of the income growth over the past 50 years has come from government benefits rather than wage growth, and those in the middle quintile (the 40th to 60th percentile) have experienced the slowest gains overall. —Shelley Stewart Iii, Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

Latin quintus + English -ile entry 2

First Known Use

1922, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for quintile

• lintel
• pintle
• quintal