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noun

hierarchy

a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system

In a sentence

Six example sentences with hierarchy, each labelled with its topic.

  • The company flattened its hierarchy from nine levels to four, and half the job titles vanished in one afternoon.

    Business

  • Biologists sort every organism into a hierarchy, from kingdom down to species, so a single name places it exactly.

    Science

  • The guild runs a strict hierarchy: recruits, raiders, officers, and one leader who alone can spend the treasury.

    Gaming

  • Maslow's hierarchy places food and safety at the bottom and self-fulfilment at the top, though later research questioned the strict order.

    Psychology

  • The feudal hierarchy ran from king to lords to knights to peasants, and each rank owed service to the one above.

    History

  • Files on the disk sit in a hierarchy of folders, so a photo's full name lists every folder above it.

    Technology

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Found in these word lists

Found in 8 published word lists

Each source is a published word list that contains hierarchy. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.