tier

1 of 3

noun (1)

ˈtir 

1

a

: a row, rank, or layer of articles

especially : one of two or more rows, levels, or ranks arranged one above another

b

: a group of political or geographic divisions that form a row across the map

the southern tier of states

2

: class, category

tier

2 of 3

verb

tiered; tiering; tiers

transitive verb

: to place or arrange in tiers

intransitive verb

: to rise in tiers

tier

3 of 3

noun (2)

ti·​er ˈtī(-ə)r 

variants or tyer

: one that ties

Synonyms

Noun (1)

• bracket
• category
• class
• classification
• division
• family
• genus
• grade
• group
• kind
• league
• order
• rank(s)
• rubric
• set
• species
• type

Examples of tier in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

More than 2 million others won prizes at lower award tiers, according to the lottery. —Dalia Faheid, CNN, 3 Apr. 2024

Currently, the only way to watch every session live is through Max’s premium B/R Sports subscription tier or MotoGP’s own in-house streaming service. —Ryan Erik King / Jalopnik, Quartz, 2 Apr. 2024

Weapon mods can also be looted or crafted out of two of the same mods of a lower tier. —Paul Tassi, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024

Expansion in international markets and Netflix’s nascent ad tier—a version of its service that comes with commercials—may help propel growth for years to come. —Rachyl Jones, Fortune, 27 Mar. 2024

However, limited tier subscriptions (services limited by factors such as mobile access, catalog availability, product features, or device restrictions) fell 4% to $1 billion. —Jem Aswad, Variety, 26 Mar. 2024

One tier will have advertising at a lower price, higher price with no ads, and then even higher price with the highest video quality, more concurrent streams, more downloads, not dissimilar to the way that Netflix has broken out their packages. —Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 21 Mar. 2024

And then there’s Tier Three, the most sophisticated tier, where the joke is not so much on Kate or whatever ominous theory has been devised to explain her whereabouts, but on the utter ineptitude of the Royal Family to quell the rising surge of antipathy towards them. —Ej Dickson, Rolling Stone, 14 Mar. 2024

The lower tier Moto G 5G uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 chipset with 4GB of RAM and includes a 6.6-inch 720p LCD, also with a 120Hz refresh rate. —Allison Johnson, The Verge, 12 Mar. 2024

Verb

Everyone from senior security leadership to tier one security analysts needs to understand their hybrid, multicloud environment. —Forbes, 1 July 2022

Storage today must instead protect our data, tier it across different media, manage it across clouds, catalog the unstructured bits, and integrate it into new cloud-native workflows. —Steve McDowell, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2023

The state decided to tier the ongoing Phase 1B, meaning that some Phase 1B groups have become eligible before others. —Emily Brindley, courant.com, 18 Feb. 2021

But, according to the think tank, there are a variety of options to limit the fiscal impact even in that scenario: Central banks could tier their reserves so some offer a lower interest rate, for one. —Mike Bird, WSJ, 29 Dec. 2020

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle French tire rank, from Old French — more at attire

First Known Use

Noun (1)

1569, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

circa 1889, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Noun (2)

1633, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing tier

• top-tier

Kids Definition

tier

1 of 3 noun

ˈti(ə)r 

: a row, rank, or layer usually arranged in a series one above the other

tiered

ˈti(ə)rd

adjective

tier

2 of 3 verb

1

: to place or arrange in tiers

2

: to rise in tiers

tier

3 of 3 noun

ti·​er

variants or tyer

ˈtī(-ə)r

: a person or thing that ties