organized

1. 1
   adjective

   Marked by efficient arrangement and a methodical, planned way of handling tasks.

   The most organized employees plan their week before it begins.

   Their campaign was remarkably organized, with clear roles for every volunteer.

   Similarmethodical, efficient, systematic

   Oppositedisorganized, messy

2. 2
   adjective

   Arranged into good order; put into a tidy or systematic state.

   The library felt calm and organized, with every book in its proper section.

   Once the spreadsheet was clean and organized, the patterns became obvious.

   Similarorderly, tidy, neat, ordered

   Oppositemessy, disorganized, chaotic, cluttered

   Note

   The sense for things and settings rather than people: a desk, a drawer or a spreadsheet is organized once someone has put it in order. Its opposites lean physical (cluttered, messy, chaotic, disarrayed), with disorganized as the neutral term. When the praise moves from the desk to whoever keeps it, the word shifts to the "efficient person" meaning, and messy and disorganized follow it there.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of organize.

   The committee organized a fundraiser for the local school.

   Volunteers organized relief supplies after the flood.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: it is the simple past (they organized a fundraiser) and the past participle after have or be (the event has been organized). Most uses take an object, but the union meaning also works without one, as in "the workers organized," and that intransitive verb is the one behind the labor-union adjective.

4. 4
   adjective

   Belonging to or formed into a labor union.

   Organized employees negotiated a new contract with management.

   The plant's assembly line became fully organized after the vote.

   Similarunionized

   Oppositeunorganized

   Note

   Labor has its own use of the word: organized labor means workers banded into unions, a phrase already in print in Mary Edgewood Lazarus's Love Vs. Marriage (1852). Choose the opposite with care. An unorganized or ununionized workplace has no union, while a disorganized one is merely chaotic, so disorganized is the wrong contrast here.

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