Word.ws English Dictionary

corporate ladder

corporate ladder noun: the hierarchy or ranking system of employment positions within a business organization; especially, such a hierarchy viewed as a ladder to be climbed (to successive higher-ranking positions) while one is pursuing a career path.

Noun

corporate ladder (plural corporate ladders)

  1. (figuratively, idiomatic) The hierarchy or ranking system of employment positions within a business organization; especially, such a hierarchy viewed as a ladder to be climbed (to successive higher-ranking positions) while one is pursuing a career path.
    • The Apartment. Producer-Director Billy Wilder tells of a sweet-natured schnook (brilliantly played by Jack Lemmon) who shoots up the corporate ladder.1960 July 4, “Time Listings”, in Time
    • "Good grooming is increasingly important as you move up the corporate ladder," said Camille Lavington, a New York image consultant.1991 September 29, Nancy Marx Better, “The Executive Life: A Gender Switch In Grooming Rituals”, in New York Times, retrieved 14 Apr 2013

Forms of corporate ladder

pluralcorporate ladders

Questions about corporate ladder

What does corporate ladder mean?
Corporate ladder means the hierarchy or ranking system of employment positions within a business organization; especially, such a hierarchy viewed as a ladder to be climbed (to successive higher-ranking positions) while one is pursuing a career path.
What part of speech is corporate ladder?
Corporate ladder is a noun.
What is the plural of corporate ladder?
The plural of corporate ladder is corporate ladders.

Words near corporate ladder in the dictionary

  1. corporate death penalties
  2. corporate death penalty
  3. corporate executive
  4. corporate executives
  5. corporate finance
  6. corporate ladder
  7. corporate ladders
  8. corporate law
  9. corporate lawyer
  10. corporate lawyers
  11. corporate manslaughter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: corporate ladder (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-corporate ladder.ogg.

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