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top-down

[ top-doun ]

adjective

  1. relating to, originating with, or directed by those of highest rank:

    a centralized, top-down organization with a chain of command reporting up from every corner of the earth.

  2. organized or proceeding from the larger, more general structure to smaller, more detailed units, as in processing information:

    Top-down investing looks at the big picture, or how the overall economy drives the markets, and then focuses on individual stocks.

  3. Computers. noting or relating to a methodology used in the design and coding of programs that takes a high-level description of a problem and successively breaks it into smaller and simpler subunits.


top-down

adjective

  1. controlled, directed, or organized from the top
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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yvlog History and Origins

Origin of top-down1

First recorded in 1940–45; 1970–75 top-down fordef 3; adjective use of the adverb phrase “from the top down
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

That top-down pressure, coupled with ongoing cuts to funding streams from the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Institute of Museum and Library Services, leaves the Smithsonian and other museums vulnerable, Walker added.

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But, she said, the top-down attacks have inspired the organization to temporarily take their project in a new direction: building an emergency shelter.

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Like a military regiment, a business is a top-down command hierarchy reinforced through discipline.

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Keen to impress their bosses, officials in this top-down system inevitably opt for a "short-termist" approach that sacrifices genuine improvement over time for quick fixes, Mr Dreyer explains.

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“This has to be brought about by some top-down process in which some conscious part of the brain decides ‘I want to think of something now and then.’”

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