Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to a hierarchical structure or process that progresses from a large, basic unit to smaller, detailed subunits: a top-down description of the department's function.
- adj. Commanded by or originating from ones having the highest rank.
Wiktionary
- adj. of, or relating to a hierarchical system that progresses from a single, large basic unit to multiple, smaller subunits
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of an approach to a problem that begins at the highest conceptual level and works down to the details
Examples
“Like the skills children develop playing "Simon Says," the skills children use to pay attention to what's happening in the present moment what they're feeling, seeing, tasting, touching, and smelling right now are called 'top-down' attention control and come from focusing on the task at hand.”
The Huffington Post: Susan Kaiser Greenland: Ready for School? Executive Function = Success
“For example, some students are described as top-down readers.”
“In the argot of Wall Street, broad economic growth projections are called top-down forecasts because they incorporate a wide range of macroeconomic factors, like manufacturing output and the unemployment rate.”
“My experience in Tunis has taught me that the U.S. should reexamine its diplomatic approach: one that challenges the notion of top-down diplomacy and includes youth in the dialogue.”
“In those days the Democrats were still very much a top-down party, with the White House wielding enormous influence.”
“* Even then, the Archdiocese acts more like a government than a private actor, in that it can issue top-down commands to integrate, even if many individual parishioners would have personally disagreed.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Public Opinion, Anti-Discrimination Law, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
“For descriptions of a wide range of potential global climate policy architectures--ranging from top-down to bottom-up--see the diverse publications of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.”
“A top-down approach failed with regards to the Security and Prosperity partnership SPP.”
The Huffington Post: Nicholas Ostroy: An Independence for North America
“This top-down, condescending view of teachers, parents and local schools is disheartening.”
The Huffington Post: Timothy D. Slekar: Value-Added Measures vs. the Love for Learning
“The key to our future success lies in bringing fresh eyes to our national innovation agenda and government's role as a catalyst and orchestrator, not a heavy-handed top-down director.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘top-down’.
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EN - fine scholarly language
exhort, accretion, twenty-nine, atrophy, additive, brilliantly, interreligious, empiricism, pathologic, limitless, half-century, vigilant and 488 more...
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POL - presidential debates
Some of the catchwords of several presidential debates (Obama-Romney 2012 Denver debate's transcript fully included)
preexist, crosstalk, figure skate, preexisting, spending cut, preconceive, zinger, excruciate, ask over, miniaturize, food stamp, Medicare and 150 more...
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EN - compound adjectives
Adjectively used nominal phrases with a "-" inside.
O-ring, B-grade, t-test, so-called, on-site, at-large, in-your-face, in-state, on-time, up-to-the-minute, in-store, on-call and 965 more...
Tweets
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