In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind (e.g., objects, persons, students, spoonfuls, units of whatever identical dimension), expressed as “a to b” or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two that explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second (not necessarily an integer). In layman’s terms a ratio represents, for every amount of one thing, how much there is of another thing. For example, supposing one has 8 oranges and 6 lemons in a bowl of fruit, the ratio of oranges to lemons would be 4:3 (which is equivalent to 8:6) while the ratio of lemons to oranges would be 3:4. Additionally, the ratio of oranges to the total amount of fruit is 4:7 (equivalent to 8:14). The 4:7 ratio can be further converted to a fraction of 4/7 to represent how much of the fruit is oranges.
