Word.ws English Dictionary

pecking order

pecking order noun: the natural ranking of social status and dominance occurring in a group of birds.

Noun

pecking order (plural pecking orders)

  1. The natural ranking of social status and dominance occurring in a group of birds.
  2. (broadly, figuratively) 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.
    Synonyms:
    hierarchy
    Antonyms:
    equality

Synonyms of pecking order

Antonyms

Forms of pecking order

pluralpecking orders

Origin of pecking order

Calque of German Hackordnung.

Questions about pecking order

What does pecking order mean?
Pecking order means the natural ranking of social status and dominance occurring in a group of birds.
What part of speech is pecking order?
Pecking order is a noun.
What is the plural of pecking order?
The plural of pecking order is pecking orders.

Words near pecking order in the dictionary

  1. peckier
  2. peckiest
  3. peckiness
  4. pecking
  5. pecking at
  6. pecking order
  7. pecking orders
  8. peckingly
  9. peckings
  10. Peckinpah
  11. Peckinpahesque

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pecking order (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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