bottom-up

adjective

bot·​tom-up ˈbä-təm-ˈəp 

: progressing upward from the lowest levels (as of a stratified organization or system)

bottom-up management

Examples of bottom-up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

To include more staff members in the process of developing AI tools, some institutions have implemented a bottom-up approach in addition to a top-down approach. —Hilke Schellmann, Scientific American, 17 Feb. 2026

For years, astronomers have debated whether planets this massive could form through core accretion, the slow, bottom-up process in which solid material clumps together into a dense core that then pulls in vast amounts of gas. —Samantha Mathewson, Space.com, 10 Feb. 2026

Adding in this new bottom-up search for the unexpected marks a new paradigm. —IEEE Spectrum, 3 Feb. 2026

The Minnesota resistance to ICE has been a bottom-up movement driven by constituents, who have emboldened their leaders to stand their ground. —Eric Roper, Mercury News, 31 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1930, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bottom-up

• buttercup
• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup