pecking order
noun
Simple meaning
The natural ranking of social status and dominance occurring in a group of birds.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehkihngawrderSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛkɪˈŋɔɹdɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
zoology
The natural ranking of social status and dominance occurring in a group of birds.
figurativelyby extension
The usually informal hierarchy of authority, command, or social status, as determined by the especially natural propensity for domination of different members of a specific group over each other, such as older brothers and sisters over their younger siblings.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The natural ranking of social status and dominance occurring in a group of birds.
Used this way, pecking order is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.