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Webster 1913 Edition


Hierarchy

Hi′er-archˊy

(hī′ẽr-ärkˊy̆)
,
Noun.
;
pl.
Hierarchies
(hī′ẽr-ärkˊĭz)
.
[Gr.
ἰεραρχία
: cf. F.
hiérarchie
.]
1.
Dominion or authority in sacred things.
2.
A body of officials disposed organically in ranks and orders each subordinate to the one above it; a body of ecclesiastical rulers.
3.
A form of government administered in the church by patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, and, in an inferior degree, by priests.
Shipley.
4.
A rank or order of holy beings.

Webster 1828 Edition


Hierarchy

HI'ERARCHY

,
Noun.
An order or rank of angels or celestial beings; or a subordination of holy beings. Some of the Rabbins reckon four, and others ten hierarchies,or orders of angels.
1.
Constitution and government of the christian church, or ecclesiastical polity, comprehending different orders of clergy; as the hierarchy of England.

Definition 2024


hierarchy

hierarchy

English

Noun

hierarchy (plural hierarchies)

  1. A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
    • 2013 August 10, Lexington, Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
      The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account.
  2. A social, religious, economic or political system or organization in which people or groups of people are ranked with some superior to others based on their status, authority or some other trait.
  3. Any group of objects ranked so that every one but the topmost is subordinate to a specified one above it.

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