Word.ws English Dictionary

pecking orders

pecking orders is the plural of pecking order.

Meaning of pecking order

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

Questions about pecking orders

What is pecking orders the plural of?
Pecking orders is the plural of pecking order.

Words near pecking orders in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pecking orders (page history and authors); 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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