Trivia Time

What was the word hierarchy originally coined to describe?

Test Your Knowledge

hierarchy

American  

[hahy-uh-rahr-kee, hahy-rahr-] / ˈhaɪ əˌrɑr ki, ˈhaɪ rɑr- /

noun

• hierarchies
  plural

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.

---

hierarchy British  

/ ˈhaɪəˌrɑːkɪ /

noun

1. a system of persons or things arranged in a graded order

2. a body of persons in holy orders organized into graded ranks

3. the collective body of those so organized

4. a series of ordered groupings within a system, such as the arrangement of plants and animals into classes, orders, families, etc

5. linguistics maths a formal structure, usually represented by a diagram of connected nodes, with a single uppermost element Compare ordering heterarchy tree

6. government by an organized priesthood

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• antihierarchy
  noun
• hierarchism
  noun
• hierarchical
  adjective
• hierarchically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• hierarchies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of hierarchy

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English jerarchie, from Middle French ierarchie, gerarchie, from Medieval Latin (h)ierarchia, from Late Greek hierarchía “stewardship of sacred rites, rule or power of the high priest,” equivalent to hier(o)- “holy, sacred” + -archía, a combining form meaning “rule”; see hier(o)-, -archy

Explanation

Hierarchy describes a system that organizes or ranks things, often according to power or importance. At school the principal is at the top of the staff hierarchy, while the seniors rule the student hierarchy. Also known as a pecking order or power structure, a hierarchy is a formalized or simply implied understanding of who's on top or what's most important. All that sorting and ranking can be helpful if you're a business administrator, but if you find yourself arranging all the produce in your fridge according to a hierarchy of color, size, and expiration date, you might want to consider visiting a therapist.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hierarchy hierarchies

Despite the lack of movement, there remains an air of calmness around the hierarchy at the Etihad.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

Father Clement Thibault, Babs’s priest-mentor since childhood, is defrocked for publicly supporting the strikers after the church hierarchy forbade him from taking sides; the priest then begins a separate campaign to expose ecclesiastical misbehavior.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

And there shouldn’t be such an obvious and geographically rigged hierarchy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026

For days, he has been locked in meetings with his top advisors and military hierarchy.

From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 2026

Terror rose to the top of the ANC hierarchy in the general section, and was soon teaching ANC policies to other prisoners.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

“Up All Night” is filled with examples of how nightclubs subverted social hierarchies and thrived in opposition to mainstream culture.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

This is the Christian tradition: questioning inherited norms, unsettling comfortable hierarchies, insisting that the ethical imagination can go further than traditional society allows.

From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2026

Those species often have more rigid dominance hierarchies and predictable succession systems.

From Science Daily ● May 26, 2026

“We need more voices — feminist perspectives, stories from marginalized communities, an honest reckoning with colorism and the hierarchies embedded in South Asian culture,” Singh said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2026

Western music, being more orientated towards harmony than its non-Western counterparts, gradually formed hierarchies among the twelve notes, so that the listener's ears latched on to a 'home' in the sound.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

Related Words

• pecking order
• ranking