echelon

American  

[esh-uh-lon] / ˈɛʃ əˌlɒn /

noun

• echelons
  plural

1. a level of command, authority, or rank.

   After years of service, she is now in the upper echelon of city officials.

   Synonyms:

   standing, class, position, rung, tier, row, office, grade, authority, hierarchy, rank, place

2. a level of worthiness, achievement, or reputation.

   studying hard to get into one of the top echelon colleges.

   Synonyms:

   tier, position, degree

3. Military. a formation of troops, ships, airplanes, etc., in which groups of soldiers or individual vehicles or craft are arranged in parallel lines, either with each line extending to the right of the one in front right echelon or with each line extending to the left of the one in front left echelon, so that the whole presents the appearance of steps.

4. Military. one of the groups of a formation so arranged.

5. Archaic. any structure or group of structures arranged in a steplike form.

6. Also called echelon grating. Spectroscopy. a diffraction grating that is used in the resolution of fine structure lines and consists of a series of plates of equal thickness stacked in staircase fashion.

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verb (used with or without object)

• echelons,
  present (3rd person singular)
• echeloned,
  past participle,  past
• echeloning
  present participle

1. to form in an echelon.

echelon British  

/ ˈɛʃəˌlɒn /

noun

1. a level of command, responsibility, etc (esp in the phrase the upper echelons )

2. military

   1. a formation in which units follow one another but are offset sufficiently to allow each unit a line of fire ahead

   2. a group formed in this way

3. physics a type of diffraction grating used in spectroscopy consisting of a series of plates of equal thickness arranged stepwise with a constant offset

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verb

1. to assemble in echelon

Pop Culture

—Row echelon form: In linear algebra, a simplified form of a matrix in which each non-zero row has more leading zeros than the previous row. —ECHELON: Code name of a global surveillance system developed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). It operates by intercepting and processing international communications transmitted via communications satellites. —Third Echelon: A fictional sub-group of the NSA created by Tom Clancy in his Splinter Cell book series.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• echelonment
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• echelons
  plural

Participles

• echeloning
  present
• echeloned
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• echelon
  simple
• echelons
  simple
• have echeloned
  perfect
• has echeloned
  perfect
• am echeloning
  progressive
• are echeloning
  progressive
• is echeloning
  progressive
• have been echeloning
  perfect progressive
• has been echeloning
  perfect progressive

Past

• echeloned
  simple
• had echeloned
  perfect
• was echeloning
  progressive
• were echeloning
  progressive
• had been echeloning
  perfect progressive

Future

• will echelon
  simple
• will have echeloned
  perfect
• will be echeloning
  progressive
• will have been echeloning
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of echelon

First recorded in 1790–1800; from French échelon, originally “rung of a ladder,” from Old French eschelon, equivalent to esch(i)ele “ladder” (from Latin scāla + -on noun suffix; see scale ³)

Explanation

An echelon is a stepped formation with objects arranged in a diagonal. Birds flying in a V shape create echelons so that they can draft behind each other and conserve energy — except for the guy up front, who’s super tired. Echelon patterns are often used by the military, with rows of tanks, troops, or aircraft arranged behind and to the left or behind and to the right of the row ahead. Echelon can also refer to a particular level or rank in a group or society. If you win the Olympics, you’ve reached the upper echelon of athletics. If you win a hot dog eating contest . . . Well, you reached a pretty low echelon of athletics.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

echelon echelons echeloned echeloning

A laboured points victory over Regis Prograis in his last outing did little to convince purists he belongs at the sport's highest echelon.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

When SpaceX went public, it did so at a more than $1.7 trillion valuation, putting it firmly in the upper echelon of companies by market capitalization.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026

Others, like “Obsession,” catapult from modest beginnings into an echelon of popularity that not even the academics and historians could’ve foreseen.

From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026

The marketing campaign “is definitely at the top echelon of what we do,” said Morrison.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026

The political dialogue within the highest echelon of the revolutionary generation was a decade-long shouting match.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

But while Kushner may be relatively unknown compared with his politically active brother, he has rapidly and quietly risen to the upper echelons of business, with an estimated net worth of $16.7 billion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026

Since graduating from Columbia University in 2021 as the class valedictorian at age 19, Leopold Aschenbrenner has worked his way into the upper echelons of technology.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

McMaster and several other creative colonels, who, at least for a little while, turned around both the Iraq War and the upper echelons of the U.S.

From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026

The National League suffers from an archaic quirk within the upper echelons of the football pyramid, with only its champions going straight up.

From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026

And that is perhaps the first and most fundamental thing that all novice oarsmen must learn about competitive rowing in the upper echelons of the sport: that pain is part and parcel of the deal.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

"Together with our partners we’re working on an integrated & echeloned air defense system. We are preparing for winter on the battlefield," he wrote.

From Reuters ● Nov. 16, 2022

Details such as the echeloned curls, sinuous eyebrows, and almond-shaped eyes of the Girl with a Late Period Bob were painstakingly sculpted.

From Time Magazine Archive

General Clark, back in Vienna, had a military metaphor that summed up the conference: "Russia gave us impossible demands, echeloned in depth."

From Time Magazine Archive

His advanced troops were carefully echeloned in fortified farms, each strongly concreted and armed with several machine guns.

From The Story of the "9th King's" in France by Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

A regiment of infantry was massed in rear of the Palais d'Orsay; a regiment of dragoons was echeloned along the quay.

From The Memoirs of Victor Hugo by Victor Hugo

The echeloning of the specialists in front is also the most favorable formation to progress by rushes in a terrain cut up by shell holes.

From Military Instructors Manual by Oliver Schoonmaker