hierarchical
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hierarchical
Explanation
If something is hierarchical it has clear levels of power and importance, such as a hierarchical corporation that has the boss at the top, or the hierarchical social order of junior high school popularity. It's lonely at the top. That pretty much sums up hierarchical, pronounced "high-eh-RAR-ki-cal." In a hierarchical structure, people or groups are arranged according to ability or status. It helps to think of a triangle, with the leader at the highest point, layers of managers under him or her, and at the base, or widest part, the masses of workers who make up the largest part of the organization.
Vocabulary lists containing hierarchical
Reading: Informational - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Certainly not, for the basic reason that a pluralistic legislature lacks the singular, hierarchical decision-making that a president brings to bear.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
More elaborate designs, including hatched bands, grids, and diamond-shaped motifs, also showed evidence of rotation, translation, repetition, and "embedding," i.e., the ability to build hierarchical levels of signs within the same surface.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
That suggests a more consistent and hierarchical internal system for directing support.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026
North Korean society is deeply hierarchical, with some analysts comparing it to a caste system.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026
But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction—indeed, in some sense was the destruction—of a hierarchical society.
From "1984" by George Orwell
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
