bottom-up

[ bot-uhm--uhp ]

adjective

1. of, relating to, or originating with the common people, nonprofessionals, or the lower ranks of an organization:

   The five-day workweek was a bottom-up movement that business leaders and politicians finally supported.

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

   His bottom-up approach to research involves immersing himself in communities to better understand the lives of local entrepreneurs.

bottom-up

adjective

1. from the lowest level of a hierarchy or process to the top

   a bottom-up approach to corporate decision-making

Word History and Origins

Origin of bottom-up¹

First recorded in 1930–35 as an adjective and in 1890–95 as an adverb, both deriving from the phrase “from the bottom up ”

Example Sentences

Even then, they mainly constituted “one-way information dissemination efforts via mass media and web-based channels; they were rarely reflective of bottom-up, participatory approaches to engage communities on the protective behaviours,” the authors wrote.

From Salon

Scientists in the field have described these apparently distinct tumor-forming processes as "bottom-up" and "top-down."

From Science Daily

Scientists hope to gain a better understanding of how this process unfolds and how such bottom-up construction can be used to advance technologies in computer science, materials science, medical diagnostics and other areas.

From Science Daily

So he came to realize that more of a kind of bottom-up management of the commonwealth is good for people and creates a more equal society.

From Salon

The EPA estimates that landfills are the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the U.S., but the EPA uses a bottom-up accounting method that often doesn't match observations of atmospheric methane.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• reversed
• upturned