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hierarchy

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hi⋅er⋅ar⋅chy

  [hahy-uh-rahr-kee, hahy-rahr-]
Use hierarchy in a Sentence
–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
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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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.

  3. 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.

  5. 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.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

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.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

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)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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