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There seems to be a systematic ambiguity. The quartiles are the three values that divide a probability distribution into four parts; but loosely, "quartile" is also used for any one of the four parts so created.
The only terms I've seen are quartile, decile, and percentile, and I think these are all subject to the same ambiguity. People talk of something being in the top percentile, meaning it's in the top 1%. Strictly this is above the top percentile, which is the 99th percentile.
If n is an integer, an n-ile is a value that divides the data into n equal parts, so there are n - 1 n-iles altogether. The first n-ile separates the lower 1/n from the remaining (n - 1)/n. So the first quartile separates the lower quarter from the upper three-quarters, the middle quartile separates the upper and lower halves, and the upper quartile separates the lower three-quarters from the upper quarter.
Those quarters are also loosely referred to as quartiles, under the natural (mis)apprehension that there must be four quartiles.
If q is a proportion 0 < q < 1, the q-quantile is the point such that the amount of data under it is q. So the first quartile is the 0.25-quantile.
As quartus is a Latin ordinal, and as the old month names were Quintilis and Sextilis, probably "tertile" is a good name for the two points dividing data into three.
http://www.riskglossary.com/articles/quantile.htm
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quartile variations
jennieho 11/27/2003 10:42 AM ![]()
Re: quartile variations
wwh 11/27/2003 1:38 PM ![]()
Re: quartile variations
stales 11/28/2003 1:05 AM ![]()
quantiles
Jenet 11/28/2003 6:56 AM ![]()
Re: quantiles
Buffalo Shrdlu 11/28/2003 11:51 AM ![]()
Re: quantiles
Faldage 11/28/2003 12:59 PM ![]()
Re: quantiles
Buffalo Shrdlu 11/28/2003 1:04 PM ![]()
Re: quantiles
Faldage 11/28/2003 1:07 PM ![]()
Re: quantiles
Buffalo Shrdlu 11/28/2003 1:24 PM ![]()
Re: quartiles
Jackie 11/28/2003 7:54 PM ![]()
Re: quartiles
Buffalo Shrdlu 11/28/2003 8:58 PM ![]()
circiles
Jenet 11/28/2003 11:48 PM ![]()
Re: circiles
Jackie 11/29/2003 2:37 AM ![]()
more -iles
wofahulicodoc 12/01/2003 12:00 AM
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