hierarchical

UK/ˌhaɪəˈɹɑːkɪkəl/US/ˌhaɪˈɹɑɹkɪkəl/

adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,932 of 15,258mostly written

Hierarchical means arranged in ranks from highest to lowest. A hierarchical organisation, hierarchical structure, less hierarchical.

It is used as a criticism as often as a description, since calling a workplace hierarchical says decisions are made above and handed down. The Greek behind it means rule by a high priest.

Definitions of hierarchical

1adjectivehierarchicalArranged in ranks from highest to lowest.C1
“The army is a strictly hierarchical organisation, where every soldier knows who they must obey.”

hierarchical is a quality.

Where it comes from

From hierarchy, from Greek hierarches, a high priest, from hieros, sacred, plus archein, to rule.

Latin
ierarchia
Old French
ierarchie
Middle English
ierarchie
English
hierarchy
English, today
hierarchical

Built from

ἱεράρχης · Ancient Greek — high priest
ἱερός · Ancient Greek — holy
ἄρχω · Ancient Greek — to rule

From hierarchy + ical; compare French hiérarchique. hierarchy comes from Middle English ierarchie, jerarchie, from Old French ierarchie, jerarchie, from Latin ierarchia, from Latin hierarchia, from Ancient Greek ἱεραρχία (“rule of a high priest”), from ἱεράρχης (“high priest”), from ἱερός (“holy”) + ἄρχω (“to rule”), equivalent to hiero- + -archy. The H was re-added c. 1500 due to influence from Classical Latin.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

hierarchical in the wild

Similarly, hierarchical file systems organize files in directories.
Namespace
A tree structure, tree diagram, or tree model is a way of representing the hierarchical nature of a structure in a graphical form.
Tree structure
A hierarchical database model is a data model in which the data is organized into a tree-like structure.
Hierarchical database model
The hierarchical database model mandates that each child record has only one parent, whereas each parent record can have zero or more child records.
Hierarchical database model
In data mining and statistics, hierarchical clustering (also called hierarchical cluster analysis or HCA) is a method of cluster analysis that seeks to build a hierarchy of clusters.
Hierarchical clustering

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the ierarchie family

hierarchy hierarchical

hierarchical — used about once every 33,333 pages · #13,932 · point at the bar for the others

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