as in hierarchy
a series of types of living things in which each one uses the next lower member of the series as a source of food
Sharks eat fish that are lower in the food chain. animals that are at the top of the food chain
Related Words
Relevance
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for food chain
Noun
-
The constant need to increase memory performance and density to keep pace with the performance of the processing elements and the demands of increasingly complex workloads, such as AI, has driven innovation at every layer of the hierarchy.—
Jim McGregor,
Forbes.com,
4 Aug. 2025 -
Where once the ballplayers were the easy marks, now athletes sat at the top of the hierarchy.—
Adam Gopnik,
New Yorker,
4 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
When in a forest, stay in proximity to shorter tree groupings.—
CA Weather Bot,
Sacbee.com,
25 July 2025
-
This process would have stolen away all the dwarf galaxy's stars to leave behind a free-floating black hole with just a small, tight grouping of stars left to keep it company.—
Keith Cooper,
Space.com,
25 July 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Cite this Entry
“Food chain.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/food%20chain. Accessed 7 Aug. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share