- present participle of rank.
ranking
Americanadjective
noun
-
an act or instance of indicating relative standing.
-
a list showing such standing.
adjective
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prominent; high ranking
-
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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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.
See Examples For:
U.S. tech investors may welcome the chance to secure more direct exposure to South Korea’s second-biggest company, ranking behind only Samsung Electronics.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 10, 2026
Fery, a virtually unknown British wild card with a triple-digit ranking, has become the emotional heartbeat of Wimbledon while legitimately diverting some national attention from England’s World Cup quest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
US artificial intelligence lab Anthropic scored the highest in a semiannual safety ranking, but globally the industry fails to combat "existential" threats, according to a report released on Tuesday.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
In our study, leadership included the speaker, party leaders, whips, caucus or conference chairs, and committee chairs or ranking members.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026
Far from being modern breadbaskets, they include areas ranking today as somewhat dry or ecologically degraded: Iraq and Iran, Mexico, the Andes, parts of China, and Africa’s Sahel zone.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Tokyo is the world’s cheapest major city, according to one investment bank’s annual rankings.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 14, 2026
The first phone call should be to Andy Flower, the man who masterminded England's last series win in Australia and took them to the top of the world rankings.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
ADI Predictstreet said it would periodically take snapshots of the rankings to determine winners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
The victory over India on Saturday gave England a 4-0 T20 series win over the world champions and put them at number one in the world rankings.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
“Transfers, the order in which you go through the final test was taken from your rankings as they now stand,” Tobias says.
From "Divergent" by Veronica Roth
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.
