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rank

adjective · noun · verb

Simple meaning

Strong in growth.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rangk
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɹæŋk

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Strong in growth; growing with vigour or rapidity, hence, coarse or gross.

  2. Causing strong growth; producing luxuriantly; rich and fertile.

  3. Strong to the senses; offensive; noisome.

  4. Suffering from overgrowth or hypertrophy; plethoric.

  5. informal

    Gross, disgusting, foul.

noun

  1. A row of people or things organized in a grid pattern, often soldiers.

  2. One's position in a list sorted by a shared property such as physical location, population, popularity, or quality.

  3. The level of one's position in a class-based society.

verb

  1. transitive

    To place abreast or in a line.

  2. Take or have a position relative to others

    “This painting ranks among the best in the Western World.”

  3. transitive

    To assign a suitable place in a class or order; to classify.

  4. intransitive

    To have a ranking.

  5. Assign a rank or rating to

    “How would you rank these students?”

  6. Take precedence or surpass others in rank

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Strong in growth; growing with vigour or rapidity, hence, coarse or gross.

Used this way, rank 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
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

How It’s Used

The word’s distinct uses, one example each.

  • Takeverb

    “This painting ranks among the best in the Western World.”

  • Assignverb

    “How would you rank these students?”

More ways to use rank

  • “This painting ranks among the best in the Western World.”verb
  • “His salary was determined by his rank and seniority.”noun
  • “How would you rank these students?”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • rankingnounInflected form

    Position on a scale in relation to others in status or rank or achievement.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • The most commonly used method of computing a correlation coefficient between the ranks of scores on two variables.

  • rank ordernounCompound term

    An arrangement according to rank.

  • The most commonly used method of computing a correlation coefficient between the ranks of scores on two variables.

  • The most commonly used method of computing a correlation coefficient between the ranks of scores on two variables.

  • rank and filenounCompound term

    The ordinary members of an organization (such as the enlisted soldiers of an army).

  • rank-order correlationnounCompound term

    The most commonly used method of computing a correlation coefficient between the ranks of scores on two variables.

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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.