hierarchy

n 1: a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a

system: "put honesty first in her hierarchy of values"

2: the organization of people at different ranks in an

administrative body [syn: {power structure}, {pecking

order}]

hierarchy

An organisation with few things, or one thing, at the top and

with several things below each other thing. An inverted tree

structure. Examples in computing include a directory

hierarchy where each directory may contain files or other

directories; a hierarchical {network} (see {hierarchical

routing}), a {class hierarchy} in {object-oriented

programming}.

(1994-10-11)