Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One of a series of rows placed one above another: a stadium with four tiers of seats.
- n. A rank or class.
- v. To arrange (something) into or rise in tiers: tier a wedding cake; balconies that tier upward.
- n. One that ties: a tier of knots.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A range of mountains.
- n. One who or that which ties.
- n. A child's apron. Also, erroneously, tire.
- n. In entomology, same as leaf-tier.
- n. A row; a rank, particularly when two or more rows are placed one above another: as, a tier of seats in a theater; the old three-decked war-ships had three tiers of guns on each side, the upper, middle, and lower tiers.
- n. In organ-building, same as rank, 1 .
- To pile, build, or arrange in tiers. Compare tierer.
- n. See tire.
Wiktionary
- n. One who ties (knots, etc).
- n. Something that ties.
- n. A layer or rank, especially of seats or a wedding cake.
- v. transitive To arrange in layers.
- v. transitive To cascade in an overlapping sequence.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who, or that which, ties.
- n. A chold's apron covering the upper part of the body, and tied with tape or cord; a pinafore.
- n. A row or rank, especially one of two or more rows placed one above, or higher than, another.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a relative position or degree of value in a graded group
- n. a worker who ties something
- n. any one of two or more competitors who tie one another
- n. something that is used for tying
- n. one of two or more layers one atop another
Etymologies
- Maybe from Middle French, from Old French tirer, "draw, pull out". (Wiktionary)
- Middle English tire, row, rank, from Old French, from tirer, to draw out; see tirade. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“These guys operated on what we call a tier one level.”
“We've got a lot of franchisee interest on our business from what I call tier-1 franchisees.”
“There are a few different tiers of security at our school, but most people (teachers and students) have what I refer to as tier one, which is where everything remotely useful is blocked.”
“A year later, high-end home buyers were thought to have endless, deep pockets, further insulating the top-tier from the cratering economy.”
“Store sizes will be upwards of 15,000-25,000 square feet even in tier II towns like Pune.”
“I work in tier 1 (tier 2-ish tasks many times) HelpDesk at a media company and I'm constantly copying/pasting things in Active Directory, MS Exchange Management Console, and other systems.”
CopyPasteTool Is A Tiny, Dead-Simple Clipboard Helper | Lifehacker Australia
“The second tier is always there; the issue is: what the first tier should look like.”
“Because this lower tier is what Medicare will become.”
“I was just saying that I could empathise with the sense that some authors might not feel ready to pitch to bigger venues and that, as a result, an easier-to-get-in tier of markets was probably no bad thing.”
GUEST POST: Jennifer Brissett Weighs in on the Writer Pay Rate Flap
“Each tier is filled with chocolate buttercream while being iced with vanilla buttercream.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tier’.
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TECH - web application frameworks
object-oriented p..., ALGOL, validation, Erlang, markup language, Python, hibernate, framework, Apache, template, mapper, Java and 310 more...
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Word of the day.
Some days, there will be a word. That word is the word of the day. Other days shall remain wordless. That's just the way things go.
petulant, anisometropia, zoroaster, cram, affinity, proprietary, cupertino effect, sidereal, schmutz, icosanoids, vendetta, bougie and 137 more...
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European World Systems
europe, colonization, defense, barter, feudalism, gunpowder, technology, guns, domination, lords, monarchs, transition and 250 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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ideas out loud
bandwagon, middle, via, web, fly, thru, safety, thor, swoosh, top, network effect, matrix and 200 more...
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5-1
Hecko, words! Thanks for staying with me. :-)
avenue, viscous, zeroth, usher, scarcely, viability, snout, sole, purify, riotous, menace, moist and 364 more...
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the hotlist
short, sweet, epic, catchy, sassy, sexy & sizzling.
( personal list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/...zing, epic, win, fail, hot, warp, times, clip, onyx, wonky, pwn, leet and 1493 more...
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Words of Note
autoscopic, Bilocation, enmesh, Inusitate, irenic, ipseity, slake, lee, waif, betide, intercessor, viand and 84 more...
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William Steig
Linguistic exuberance from the childrens' books of William Steig
palsy-walsy, squoze, goosewit, oodles, as real as peas a..., clabber cheese, feeling his onions, lard, noggin, bantling, alackaday, flabbergasted and 55 more...
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Just Plain Beautiful
Words that are just pretty. I don't know whether it's because of what they mean that I find them pretty, or because of how they sound, or both. But these are my lovely words.
penumbra, crimson, afterglow, topaz, lyre, velvet, ivory, mist, vespertine, oubliette, aria, crystalline and 31 more...
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2013-01-03
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tier.

yarb Is this the last of Leonard? No. His fall is broken by tiers of fern fronds.
- William Steig, The Zabajaba Jungle Oct 5, 2008