ratio
ratio Lexical Profile
ratio Game Scores & Validity
• noun
The quantitative relation between two amounts showing the number of times one value contains or is contained within the other.
"The school maintains a low student-to-teacher ratio to ensure personalized instruction in every classroom."
On social media, a situation in which a post receives significantly more critical replies than likes or shares, or in which a reply receives more likes than the original post, indicating widespread disapproval.
"The company deleted its controversial announcement after suffering a massive ratio from frustrated customers online."
• verb
To overwhelm a social media post or user with critical replies, or to garner substantially more likes on a reply than the original post received (used in internet slang).
"Critics quickly ratioed the politician's post within minutes of its publication."
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse 'ratio' with 'proportion': while both compare quantities, a 'ratio' specifically compares two distinct parts to each other (such as 3 to 1), whereas a 'proportion' often expresses a part in relation to the whole or the equality between two ratios.
• Rhymes for ratio
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the mid-17th century directly from Latin 'ratio', meaning 'reckoning, calculation, or reason', derived from the verb 'reri' ('to reckon or think'), which also gave English 'rate', 'ration', and 'reason'.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.