Hypertext Webster Gateway: "hierarchy"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
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.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
hierarchy
n 1: a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a
system: "put honesty first in her hierarchy of values"
2: the organization of people at different ranks in an
administrative body [syn: {power structure}, {pecking
order}]
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