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Synonyms

well-ordered

American  
[wel-awr-derd] / ˈwɛlˈɔr dərd /

adjective

  1. arranged, planned, or occurring in a desirable way, sequence, etc.

well-ordered British  

adjective

  1. logic maths (of a relation) having the property that every nonempty subset of its field has a least member under the relation: less than is well-ordered on the natural numbers but not on the reals, since an open set has no least member

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of well-ordered

First recorded in 1600–10

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.

"Previous results suggested massive, well-ordered disks forming very early on, which didn't fit our models," said co-author Dr. Sandro Tacchella of the Kavli Institute and the Cavendish Laboratory.

From Science Daily • Oct. 30, 2025

It should be possible—and it is essential to a well-ordered society—to call out morally reprehensible behavior by your own side as well as by your opponents.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 27, 2025

Local resident Reka told me she couldn't understand how an attack like this could have happened in her well-ordered city.

From BBC • Jun. 10, 2025

Three years later, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture whisked them off to a quaint fictional village in the west of England, zigzagging through arable fields and well-ordered front gardens.

From New York Times • Jun. 17, 2024

She shows her power where there is no well-ordered virtue to resist her, and therefore turns her impetus towards where she knows no dikes and dams have been constructed to hold her in.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

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.