"Percentages refer to fractions of a whole; that is, whatever you're looking at, the percentage is how much of the whole thing you have. For instance, "50%" means " 1/2 "; "25%" means " 1/4 "; "40%" means " 2/5 "; et cetera.
Often you will need to figure out what percentage of something another thing is. For instance, if a class has 26 students, and 14 are female, what percentage of the students are female? It is 14 out of 26, or 14/26 = 0.538461538462..., or about 54%. (For more information on percent word problems, look at the Percent of lesson.)
"Percent" is actually "per cent", meaning "out of a hundred". (It comes from the Latin per centumfor "thoroughly hundred".) You can use this "out of a hundred" meaning, along with the fact that fractions indicate division, to convert between fractions, percents, and decimals."
See how to convert between decimals, fractions and percent.