Tiered

How to spell tiered

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tiered

What does tiered mean?

1. adjectiveArranged in a series of rows, levels or grades stacked or ranked one above another.

Tiered in a sentence

• The bakery delivered a three-tiered cake for the reception.

• The company introduced a tiered pricing model with bronze, silver and gold plans.

Where does tiered come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is built on the noun 'tier', meaning a row, rank or layer arranged one above another. 'Tier' came into English in the 1500s from the Old French word 'tire', which meant a rank, sequence or orderly arrangement, and that noun in turn grew out of the verb 'tirer', meaning 'to draw' or 'to pull', the idea being of things drawn out into a line or order. The spelling settled with the 'ie' vowel cluster that English often borrowed from French, which is exactly the source of confusion, because the letters can easily be transposed into the unrelated word 'tired'. Adding the participial '-ed' gave us 'tiered', describing anything stacked or graded into successive levels, from wedding cakes to pricing plans. The same drawing-out sense survives in the related English verb 'tier', meaning to arrange in layers.

How the word is built

• tier (a row, rank or layer)
• -ed (adjective/participle suffix)