How to Use hierarchy in a Sentence

hierarchy

noun
  • He was at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy.
  • The church hierarchy faced resistance to some of their decisions.
  • In the hierarchy of the ship’s crew, the mail clerks were somewhere in the middle.
    Susan Seubert, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Aug. 2021
  • At the very same time that big money was on the rise, the power of the Catholic hierarchy was on the wane.
    Katherine Stewart, The New Republic, 9 Mar. 2021
  • And food conferred a place in a hierarchy of the scarred.
    The Economist, 16 June 2018
  • Other than that, the meeting is by men and for men — the hierarchy of the church.
    Nicole Winfield, The Seattle Times, 20 Feb. 2019
  • Lue dismissed the idea of any kind of hierarchy, saying the team just needs to play the right way.
    Chris Fedor, cleveland.com, 19 Jan. 2018
  • The hierarchy should always be those with the least go first.
    John Surico, Curbed, 16 Oct. 2023
  • There’s this whole weird hierarchy where the chef is revered as this god.
    Alyson Sheppard, Robb Report, 24 June 2021
  • The mass of the Higgs is one aspect of what is known as the hierarchy problem in physics.
    The Economist, 13 Jan. 2018
  • The hierarchy of power in the Shrek universe is about to change.
    Brendan Morrow, The Week, 4 Apr. 2023
  • To speak to a Jew would be to lose one’s place in our boyish hierarchy.
    Cathleen Schine, The New York Review of Books, 16 Mar. 2021
  • The word is still spoken and the sense of racial hierarchy is still intact.
    Michael K. McIntyre, cleveland, 13 Oct. 2019
  • And the hierarchy of the ship is so ill-defined that even when mutiny brews, the stakes of the conflict remain vague.
    Stephen Kearse, The Atlantic, 15 Apr. 2022
  • In her own words, the brash, scathing sound was born from a primal need to resist the hierarchy.
    Tanu I. Raj, Billboard, 13 Feb. 2023
  • The hierarchy of power at the box office is about to change.
    J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 22 Oct. 2022
  • And someone high up in the hierarchy often needs to serve as that voice.
    Sarah Scoles, Wired, 28 May 2021
  • Wisconsin is known as the land of beer and cheese — but brats are often the next in the hierarchy of state foods.
    Jordyn Noennig, Journal Sentinel, 30 Mar. 2023
  • While status was clear among the dukes and earls at the top of the hierarchy, things got fuzzy among the low-ranking nobles.
    Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 June 2022
  • The new cuts conform to the state’s hierarchy of water rights.
    Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle, 20 Aug. 2021
  • The social hierarchy part of the film is not presented in black and white.
    Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 7 Feb. 2023
  • The basic idea of the food chain is a who-eats-who type of mapping with the ultimate predator at the top of the hierarchy.
    Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 11 Oct. 2023
  • In some senses, the top of the large cardinal hierarchy is in sight.
    Dave Linkletter, Popular Mechanics, 22 July 2022
  • Often there’s no hierarchy in the way the images are laid out.
    Ray Mark Rinaldi, The Know, 26 Mar. 2020
  • Luckily, there is a place for both in the hierarchy of the spirit world.
    Beth Segal, cleveland, 28 May 2021
  • There are signs that the White House hierarchy knows change is needed.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 29 May 2017
  • But when the trip goes awry, the social hierarchy onboard shifts.
    Douglas Greenwood, Vogue, 30 May 2022
  • Maybe some of them see a chance to rise through a hierarchy, despite the murky morality of the drug business.
    Deborah Bonello, Los Angeles Times, 14 Nov. 2023
  • His ascent in the church hierarchy was even swifter than his rise in the oil industry.
    Mark Landler, New York Times, 22 Dec. 2023
  • But its time at the top of the 3-series hierarchy will be limited.
    David Beard, Car and Driver, 30 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hierarchy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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