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hierarchy

- 5 dictionary results

hi⋅er⋅ar⋅chy

[hahy-uh-rahr-kee, hahy-rahr-]
–noun, plural -chies.
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.

Origin:
1300–50; < ML hierarchia < LGk hierarchía rule or power of the high priest, equiv. to hier- hier- + archía -archy; r. ME jerarchie < MF ierarchie < ML ierarchia, var. of hierarchia
hi·er·ar·chy   (hī'ə-rär'kē, hī'rär'-)   
n.   pl. hi·er·ar·chies
  1. A body of persons having authority.
    1. Categorization of a group of people according to ability or status.
    2. The group so categorized.
    3. A body of clergy organized into successive ranks or grades with each level subordinate to the one above.
    4. Religious rule by a group of ranked clergy.
  2. A series in which each element is graded or ranked: put honesty first in her hierarchy of values.
    1. A body of clergy organized into successive ranks or grades with each level subordinate to the one above.
    2. Religious rule by a group of ranked clergy.
  3. One of the divisions of angels.

[Middle English ierarchie, from Old French, from Medieval Latin hierarchia, from Greek hierarkhiā, rule of a high priest, from hierarkhēs, high priest; see hierarch.]

Hierarchy

Hi"er*arch`y\, n.; pl. Hierarchies. [Gr. ?: cf. F. hi['e]rarchie.]

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.

Standards and gonfalons . . . for distinction serve Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees. --Milton.
Language Translation for : hierarchy
Spanish: jerarquía,
German: die Hierarchie,
Japanese: 階級制

hierarchy 
c.1343, from O.Fr. ierarchie, from M.L. hierarchia "ranked division of angels" (in the system of Dionysius the Areopagite), from Gk. hierarchia "rule of a high priest," from hierarches "high priest, leader of sacred rites," from ta hiera "the sacred rites" (neut. pl. of hieros "sacred") + archein "to lead, rule." Sense of "ranked organization of persons or things" first recorded 1619, initially of clergy, probably infl. by higher.

hierarchy
An organisation with few things, or one thing, at the top and with several things below each other thing. An inverted tree structure. Examples in computing include a directory hierarchy where each directory may contain files or other directories; a hierarchical network (see hierarchical routing), a class hierarchy in object-oriented programming.
(1994-10-11)

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