a hundred and ten percent
- idiom
- Informal
:
dar el cien por ciento
- She always gives a hundred and ten percent in every project she tackles.
Examples
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Way to give a hundred and ten percent.
-
A hundred and ten percent.
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The team really showed a hundred and ten percent during the championship game.
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To succeed in this competition, you need to put in a hundred and ten percent of your effort.
Synonyms
5
3.2
To try as hard as possible
4
4.9
To try as hard as possible using all your energy
2
6.4
To try as hard as possible and do more than people expect
1
2.7
The act of putting all your energy and attention into doing something
1
8.6
To try very hard to do something
To work as hard as you can, often more than expected
Put in as much effort and energy as possible
Try as hard as possible to do something well
Antonyms
How Committed
Surface Forms
Morphology
a + hundred + and + ten + percent
The phrase literally combines 'hundred' + 'and' + 'ten' + 'percent' to yield 110%, so a learner who knows basic numbers and the meaning of 'percent' can infer it means more than 100% (i.e., extra effort). This numeric hyperbole is conventional but compositional and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner knowing the constituents should be able to derive the intended meaning.
Etymology
A hundred and ten percent may come from the simple picture of scoring more than 100 out of 100, or of adding an extra 10% on top of a full effort. So it is used to say 'give more than the maximum effort'.