hierarchical

[ hahy-uh-rahr-ki-kuhl, hahy-rahr- ]

adjective

1. of, belonging to, or characteristic of a hierarchy.

Other Words From

• hier·archi·cal·ly adverb
• anti·hier·archic adjective
• anti·hier·archi·cal adjective
• anti·hier·archi·cal·ly adverb
• nonhi·er·archic adjective
• nonhi·er·archi·cal adjective
• nonhi·er·archi·cal·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of hierarchical¹

1425–75; late Middle English. See hierarch, -ical

Example Sentences

Any one of these parts can be exploited in this hierarchical structure, leading to a ripple effect.

From TechCrunch

Until the 1990s, many office spaces favored a transparently hierarchical way of working.

From FiveThirtyEight

DNS is how you find things on the internet, but uses a centralized, hierarchical system.

From TechCrunch

Human brains understand this part-whole composition by creating what’s called a “parse tree”—a branching diagram demonstrating the hierarchical relationship between the whole, its parts and subparts.

From MIT Technology Review

Certainly, there is potential here to outline the story of a woman wronged who then deliberately embraces the very traits that are deemed mad in a highly hierarchical, misogynist world.

From Washington Post

One road leads to freedom, sharing, and equality; the other to endless spying, a hierarchical structure, and repression.

From The Daily Beast

This makes ISIS a challenge for traditionally hierarchical organizations to counter.

From The Daily Beast

She said Mars Hill “engages in heavy-handed discipline through a hierarchical structure.”

From The Daily Beast

According to the hierarchical model of galaxy formation, the first galaxies were built out of smaller collections of matter.

From The Daily Beast

What was once a far more hierarchical, top-down, and force-fed relationship is much flatter and more voluntary.

From The Daily Beast

And you can imagine how noses were flattened against the windows to see all this hierarchical swelldom.

From Project Gutenberg

These half-caste gentlemen of leisure fall into a system of hierarchical gradations.

From Project Gutenberg

The principle of status runs through the entire hierarchical system, both visible and invisible.

From Project Gutenberg

But the following facts must not be overlooked:—First, the new conception of the Church was not yet a hierarchical one.

From Project Gutenberg

Consequently we find nothing more than traces of the hierarchical conception of the Church in Tertullian.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• hierarchic