What's the difference between "percentile" vs "probability" ?

[upper tartan]

Hi, I just came across percentile and realised that I was thinking of it the wrong way. When we talk about percentile, what does that mean? Is it how much data point is above the specified value? For example, a percentile of 10 means how much data points like above 10? Is that similar to probability? Can someone explain pls

[umbral imp]

xth percentile means x% of the data lies below it and (100-x)% of the data lies above it

so 10th percentile for example means 10% of the data lies below it and 90% lies above it

[nimble fern]

and no not directly similar to probability

its just the position of a particular data point in an ordered set

as rishi said

[upper tartan]

yep I see

as far as I remember it was used in cumulative frequency curves

any reason why it's used there?

this is the only place I come across percentile so far

[knotty shore]

because that's the natural home of percentiles.
by the nature of cumulative frequency curves, the x-axis indicate the number of data points (up to a particular x-value) and the y-value is the (sorted) value of the data point at that x-value/position. so reading along the x-axis, the nth percentile is just reading along n% between 0 and the top of the cumulative freq. curve