[hahy-uh-rahr-kee, hahy-rahr-] 
| 1. | any system of persons or things ranked one above another. |
| 2. | government by ecclesiastical rulers. |
| 3. | the power or dominion of a hierarch. |
| 4. | an organized body of ecclesiastical officials in successive ranks or orders: the Roman Catholic hierarchy. |
| 5. | one of the three divisions of the angels, each made up of three orders, conceived as constituting a graded body. |
| 6. | Also called celestial hierarchy. the collective body of angels. |
| 7. | government by an elite group. |
| 8. | Linguistics. the system of levels according to which a language is organized, as phonemic, morphemic, syntactic, or semantic. |
| hi·er·ar·chy (hī'ə-rär'kē, hī'rär'-) n. pl. hi·er·ar·chies
[Middle English ierarchie, from Old French, from Medieval Latin hierarchia, from Greek hierarkhiā, rule of a high priest, from hierarkhēs, high priest; see hierarch.] |
əˌrɑr