ranking
Americanadjective
noun
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an act or instance of indicating relative standing.
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a list showing such standing.
adjective
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prominent; high ranking
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slang possessed of style; fashionable; exciting
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ranking
Explanation
Your spot on a scale is your ranking. If your football team has a #10 ranking and you’re playing #1, well good luck. Your class ranking is how you measure up. The student with the highest ranking is the valedictorian. All kinds of things have rankings, from the top 100 colleges in the US to a person's constantly updated list of favorite horror movies. Athletes and the teams they play for have rankings too. In the military, someone who has a higher rank, or position, than anyone else who's present might say, "As the ranking officer, I'll command the troops to retreat."
Vocabulary lists containing ranking
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"The Fast and the Fuel-Efficient" and "Teens Open Doors"
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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.
Appeared in the June 8, 2026, print edition as 'How the WSJ’s Best Companies for The Future Ranking Was Created'.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
“We thank Chairman Ted Cruz and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell for their leadership and efforts to address the challenges facing college athletics,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said in a statement.
From MarketWatch • May 28, 2026
Ranking in the bottom five among big league pitchers in run support last season, the Dodgers couldn’t drum up support for their ace of aces Wednesday either.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 1, 2026
Ranking member Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said he was “very taken aback” by the rules being “not enforced and certainly just broken immediately.”
From Salon • Feb. 27, 2026
Ranking science above poetry, he is said to-65- have disdained even Virgil.
From Renaissance in Italy: Italian Literature Part 1 (of 2) by Symonds, John Addington
Definitions 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.
