What is Numerator Mean in Math?

The numerator is the number written on the top of a fraction bar. It indicates the number of parts taken out of the whole. So anything that is above the fraction bar is the numerator. In this article learn more about the numerator.

What is a Numerator?

Every fraction has two parts, a numerator, and a denominator. The numerator is the top part of a fraction bar, and the denominator is the bottom part of a fraction bar. Remember that a fraction indicates a part of a whole. The numerator denotes how many parts of that whole are being considered, while the denominator indicates the total number of parts of the whole.

A fraction is written in the form a/b, where a is the numerator, and b is the denominator. So, we can say that a fraction is written as Numerator/Denominator.

Numerator in division 

A fraction written in the form a/b is basically a ÷ b. It means we divide a by b. For example, 1/2 is the same as 1 ÷ 2. It means how many 2’s are there in 1’s. Here, 1 can be considered as the dividend or as a numerator, while 2 can be considered as the divisor or the denominator.

The numerator in a fraction

Fractions can be classified into various types based on the numerators. Some of the different types of fractions are as follows:

• When the numerator is greater than or equal to a denominator is called an improper fraction
• When the denominator is greater than a numerator is called a proper fraction
• When the numerator is 1 is called a unit fraction
• When the numerator of a fraction is 0, the complete fraction becomes 0. It doesn’t matter what the denominator is, if the numerator is zero, then the complete fraction is zero. For example: If we have 0/3 then we will get 0 as the simplified form.
• If both the numerator and denominator are the same, then we get 1 as the simplified form. Example, 5/5 = 1

Numerator vs. Denominator

The numerator and denominator together make a fraction.

Numerator	Denominator
It is at the top of the fraction bar.	It is below the fraction bar.
The numerator denotes the number of parts taken out of the whole.	The denominator indicates the total number of equal parts in which the whole is divided.
Example: In 5/7, 5 is the numerator.	Example: In 5/7, 7 is the denominator.