octarchy

[ok-tahr-kee]

noun

plural

octarchies 

1. a government by eight persons.

2. a group of eight states or kingdoms.

octarchy

/ ˈɒktɑːkɪ /

noun

1. government by eight rulers

2. a confederacy of eight kingdoms, tribes, etc

Word History and Origins

Origin of octarchy¹

First recorded in 1795–1805; oct- + -archy

Example Sentences

Finally, to use the quaint phrase of the Chancellor Whitelock, “the Octarchy was brought into one.”

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Four kingdoms of the octarchy were possessed by the Angles.

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The casual occurrence of the Engles leaving their name to this land has bestowed on our country a foreign designation; and—for the contingency was nearly occurring—had the kingdom of Northumbria preserved its ascendancy 27 in the octarchy, the seat of dominion had been altered.

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Milton, in his history of Britain, imagined that the transactions of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, or Octarchy, would be as worthless “to chronicle as the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air.”

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With the establishment of the Saxon Octarchy this territory became included in the kingdom of Mercia.

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