echelon

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a level or rank in an organization // "the upper echelons of the business world"
More Examples
This length could be reduced slightly if they were stabled en echelon. The incoming immune adults then graze the lower more fibrous echelons of the herbage which contain the majority of the L3. Even the highest echelons of management could not explain the decision. When you are in the lower echelons of any service, you are left guessing a lot of the time. Police as suspects For some suspects in the second echelon, the search is over. Brilliant riddles floated up and down the echelons, to be pondered, solved, ignored. The top echelons of the civil service have generally abjured responsibility for policy decisions.
About Word
An echelon is a stepped formation with objects arranged in a diagonal. Birds flying in a V shape create echelons so that they can draft behind each other and conserve energy — except for the guy up front, who’s super tired. Echelon patterns are often used by the military, with rows of tanks, troops, or aircraft arranged behind and to the left or behind and to the right of the row ahead. Echelon can also refer to a particular level or rank in a group or society. If you win the Olympics, you’ve reached the upper echelon of athletics. If you win a hot dog eating contest . . . Well, you reached a pretty low echelon of athletics.
Origins
1796, "step-like arrangement of troops," from French échelon "level, echelon," literally "rung of a ladder," from Old French eschelon, from eschiele "ladder," from Late Latin scala "stair, slope," from Latin scalae (plural) "ladder, steps," from PIE *skand- "to spring, leap" (see scan ). Sense of "level, subdivision" is from World War I.