hierarchy: Meaning and Definition of
hi•er•ar•chy
Pronunciation: (hī'u-rär"kē, hī'rär-), [key] — pl. -chies.
- any system of persons or things ranked one above another.
- government by ecclesiastical rulers.
- the power or dominion of a hierarch.
- an organized body of ecclesiastical officials in successive ranks or orders: the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
- one of the three divisions of the angels, each made up of three orders, conceived as constituting a graded body.
- Also calledthe collective body of angels.
- government by an elite group.
- the system of levels according to which a language is organized, as phonemic, morphemic, syntactic, or semantic.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.