food chain

noun

Definition of food chainnext
as in hierarchy
a series of types of living things in which each one uses the next lower member of the series as a source of food Sharks eat fish that are lower in the food chain. animals that are at the top of the food chain

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for food chain
  1. hierarchy
  2. grouping
Noun
  • Wednesday’s hierarchy openly predicted bumps in the road and one of them was felt on August 1, a week before the first competitive game of the new season.
    — Philip Buckingham, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2026
  • But the shifts in employment wrought by AI are challenging enterprises to adapt to more dynamic teams, assessing people based on their skills rather than their place in a hierarchy, Black says.
    — Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, semafor.com, 14 Aug. 2026
Definition of hierarchy
Noun
  • So on Friday, at UCLA’s second fall practice, the Bruins shifted around personnel and paired various offensive groupings.
    — Aaron Heisen, Daily News, 8 Aug. 2026
  • However, previous estimates thought the grouping could be just 100,000 years old.
    — Chelsea Gohd, Space.com, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of grouping
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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food
food chain
food chains
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Cite this Entry

“Food chain.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/food%20chain. Accessed 16 Aug. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on food chain

Nglish: Translation of food chain for Spanish Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about food chain

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