Gradation [noun]

Exercise could easily exist on a continuum with infinite gradations of difficulty.

Compared with many other orders, the primates were rather easy to arrange on their evolutionary tree, thanks to well-preserved fossils, as well as relatively small yet well-defined gradations between living forms.

Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same gradation that we have applied to individual possessions.

It is something of the shape of a mitre, and forms a beautiful gradation of ascent towards the summit of faade.

Why should we sacrifice this clear and useful gradation: unwell, very unwell, ill, very ill?

The merest glance at society round us shows an endless gradation of varied service.

You appear to imply that development and gradation in organs and functions are opposed to that conception, which they are not.

A little further, and by an imperceptible gradation, vice succeeds to frivolity.

Every gradation of display between splendour and misery is epitomized in the circuit of the Boulevards.

Whether the society is divided into Two Classes, or whether there is a Gradation, is another important consideration.