Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to a hierarchy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as hierarchic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pertaining to a hierarchy.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastic or priestly order.
  • adjective Classified or arranged according to various criteria into successive ranks or grades.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective classified according to various criteria into successive levels or layers

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare French hiérarchique.

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Examples

  • There's religious dissent on that score and a lot of controversy over whether one should go in hierarchical order.

    Agnostic Michael Krasny Has 'Spiritual Envy' 2010

  • There's religious dissent on that score and a lot of controversy over whether one should go in hierarchical order.

    Agnostic Michael Krasny Has 'Spiritual Envy' 2010

  • Workers in hierarchical workplaces cannot reasonably be expected to identify themselves if their opinions might touch upon their workplaces -- that's a disciplinary issue for most workers & most employers.

    Who Are You People? « PubliCola 2010

  • There's religious dissent on that score and a lot of controversy over whether one should go in hierarchical order.

    Agnostic Michael Krasny Has 'Spiritual Envy' 2010

  • There's religious dissent on that score and a lot of controversy over whether one should go in hierarchical order.

    Agnostic Michael Krasny Has 'Spiritual Envy' 2010

  • Lists of one to 413 colleges, or others from one to 713 colleges or still others from one to 1,013 colleges are those I define as hierarchical and cumulatively register as useless for one simple reason: they forgot their audience.

    Robert Franek: College Rankings Fatigue or Just Bad College Rankings Fatigue? Robert Franek 2010

  • Apes usually live in hierarchical groups in which the champs get all the sweet poon tang, top spot on the tree tastiest banana, that sort of thing.

    Archive 2007-11-18 Newmania 2007

  • Apes usually live in hierarchical groups in which the champs get all the sweet poon tang, top spot on the tree tastiest banana, that sort of thing.

    Go For The Cheeky Monkey Newmania 2007

  • My second-year summer paper also involved dual prices, this time in hierarchical linear programs, and it was published in Management Science.

    Finn E. Kydland - Autobiography 2005

  • It's not just following the rules laid down, and it's not just moving from modality to modality in hierarchical order.

    Balkinization 2003

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