Group of words that form a hierarchy? [closed]

Question

I am seeing examples at work where we have a hierarchy, but the words don't convey the relationships. The idea is that each level contains all the items in the lower level.

E.g.,

1. Group
2. Category
3. Type

It is unclear which is "higher". I can see that people are trying to use words that make sense at each level, but they don't convey the relationship.

One could use words that clearly convery the relationship but have less meaning at each level:

1. Super Category
2. Category
3. Sub-Category

And, of course, you could do the same with many things:

1. Super Group
2. Group
3. Sub Group

Are there any examples of a good set of hierarchy terms where the meaning is fairly clear for each level but the relationship between the levels is also clear?

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, you do not want a single term that simply gets modified (by "sub"/"super", by a number, etc.) but instead want a set of entirely distinct terms. Unfortunately, there is no such set that applies universally. If you were in the military, you could use squad, platoon, company, etc. If you were classifying animals, you could use species, genus, family, etc. People who know the meanings of those words will know how the echelons are ordered, but people who don't won't.