What does ranked mean?
Ranked is the past-tense and past-participle form of rank and is used when something has been placed in an order according to importance, quality, price, popularity, performance, or another criterion. It can function as an adjective, as in “top-ranked,” or as a verb, as in “The team ranked second.” A ranked list therefore communicates more than simple sequence: it implies a comparative assessment, even when the criteria are not stated. The word is common in British and American English and appears regularly in reporting on sport, business, entertainment, elections, and evaluations of products or institutions. It is generally neutral, although using ranked can lend a note of authority or formality to a result. The related noun rank comes from an older word for a row, line, or ordered position, while the modern forms ranked and ranking developed from that long-established sense of arrangement and relative standing.
Having a specified place in an ordered classification, or arranged according to relative importance or value.
"She is currently the world's top-ranked marathon runner."
Often used with a position, scale, or qualifier, such as highly, lower, or top-ranked.
The past tense and past participle of rank: to assign a place in an order or to arrange in ranked order.
"The revised entries were ranked by an independent panel."
This form is transitive when it means 'assigned a place to'; it can also be intransitive, as in 'The team ranked third.'
A ranked list is more than an ordered list: every position carries a judgment about relative importance.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does ranked come from?
Ranked is formed from the verb rank by adding the regular English past-tense and past-participle ending -ed. Rank came into Middle English through Old French from a Frankish or Germanic word associated with a row, line, or order. Related English words include range and ranch, which preserve forms of the same Germanic ancestry through later French and Spanish development.
Related word forms
How ranked is actually used
Ranked is formal and neutral in most contexts. It commonly describes competition, lists, performers, products, or candidates, where a clear order of relative position is implied.
Easily confused with ranked
Ranked means assigned a position or level in a classification, whereas ranged means arranged between limits or distributed across an area.