stratify
Americanverb (used with object)
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stratifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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stratified,
past participle, past
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stratifying
present participle
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to form or place in strata or layers.
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to preserve or germinate (seeds) by placing them between layers of earth.
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Sociology. to arrange in a hierarchical order, especially according to graded status levels.
verb (used without object)
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stratifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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stratified,
past participle, past
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stratifying
present participle
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to form strata.
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Geology. to lie in beds or layers.
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Sociology. to develop hierarchically, especially as graded status levels.
verb
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to form or be formed in layers or strata
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(tr) to preserve or render fertile (seeds) by storing between layers of sand or earth
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sociol to divide (a society) into horizontal status groups or (of a society) to develop such groups
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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de-stratifyverb (used with object)
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multistratifiedadjective
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nonstratifiedadjective
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semistratifiedadjective
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stratifiedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stratifysimple
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stratifiessimple
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have stratifiedperfect
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has stratifiedperfect
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am stratifyingprogressive
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are stratifyingprogressive
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is stratifyingprogressive
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have been stratifyingperfect progressive
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has been stratifyingperfect progressive
Past
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stratifiedsimple
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had stratifiedperfect
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was stratifyingprogressive
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were stratifyingprogressive
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had been stratifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stratify
1655–65; modeled on New Latin strātificāre, equivalent to strāti- strati- + -ficāre -fy
Explanation
Stratify means to divide into layers or classes. Announcing pay raises for only half of the employees in a company would be a quick way to stratify the office. Stratify is often used in the context of geology, when materials in the earth’s crust stratify, or form layers. This phenomenon serves as an apt metaphor for other uses of the word, particularly as it's applied to social situations. If you attend a party for geologists and notice that the mineralogists are ignoring the petrologists (and the vulcanologist didn’t even bother to show up), you might conclude that something has caused this group of geologists to stratify.
Vocabulary lists containing stratify
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:
Companies across the board are facing a misalignment between the way traditional corporate org charts stratify skills and getting the most out of AI.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2025
And the most recent study found that certain blood biomarkers may help researchers stratify patients for different treatments.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2025
Muscle T2 mapping could be used to stratify patients with primary headaches and to track potential treatment effects for monitoring.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 29, 2023
But selling verification and higher visibility would "stratify" Twitter.
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2022
THE SECRETARY: When you stratify these nuts where do you keep them?
From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting New York City, September 3, 4 and 5, 1924 by Northern Nut Growers Association
The textbook view of the oceans stratifies them into layers according to depth.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 20, 2022
During the summer months, the lake water stratifies, or forms layers, with the warmest water at the lake surface.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Because education increasingly stratifies society, so it should diligently transmit commonalities conducive to social cohesion.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 10, 2017
During the summer months, the lake water stratifies, or forms layers of temperature, with the warmest water at the lake surface.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
He gets the nuts when the crop first comes in, and stratifies in wet sand all winter, and he says they all grow.
From Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting Washington, D. C. September 8 and 9, 1916. by Northern Nut Growers Association
Here’s a visual representation of how spending has been stratified among economic classes in recent years.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 3, 2026
For instance, while it is by no means an eat-the-rich manifesto, the musical explores how financially stratified New York—and London and other cities—has become.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
I think what’s bothered me about romance is that people have these stratified steps and a playbook and rules.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2025
While the upper, water-rich layer likely convects to produce the observed disorganized magnetic field, the deeper, stratified hydrocarbon-rich layer cannot.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 25, 2024
For both of those reasons, all developments of economically complex, socially stratified, politically centralized societies beyond the level of small nascent chiefdoms were based on food production.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Square Enix took the low-resolution prerendered dioramas of the original game — gorgeous in their own right — and zoomed in, stratifying them with detail and depth, adding craggy peaks, dense jungles and sun-baked deserts.
From New York Times ● Feb. 22, 2024
Even for those whose work allows unpaid leave to heal from loss, the lack of income disproportionately affects those living in financial precarity, effectively stratifying the grief process.
From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2019
Aside from stratifying patients by their expected progression rate, clinical researchers would also like to know whether there are different subtypes of ALS, caused by different molecular pathways that might provide targets for drugs.
From Nature ● Oct. 17, 2017
Companies that used to have only red are branching out; companies that used to specialize in variety are stratifying.
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2015
Much stress is laid upon stratifying the spawn before using, when dry spawn is employed.
From Mushrooms: how to grow them a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure by William Falconer
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.
