tetrarchy

American  

[te-trahr-kee, tee-] / ˈtɛ trɑr ki, ˈti- /

Rarely tetrarchate

noun

1. the position, territory, or tenure of a tetrarch, especially of the ruler of the fourth part of a province or country in the ancient Roman Empire.

   Agrippa returned to Rome in a.d. 39 and secured the banishment of his uncle Antipas, whose tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea he was then granted.

2. a group of four joint rulers or chiefs, or the rule or domain of such a group.

   Many thanks to our tetrarchy of system administrators, who worked together to fix this complex network problem in record time.

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Other Word Forms

• tetrarchic adjective
• tetrarchical adjective

Example Sentences

This tetrarchy – the Gafa – has a collective influence over the economic and social lives of hundreds of millions of people unparalleled in human history.

From The Guardian

Each tetrarchy was divided into five provinces, ruled by five chiefs called apo-ulmen; and each province into nine districts, governed by as many ulmen, who were subject to the apo-ulmen, as the latter were to the toquis.

From Project Gutenberg

The supreme power of each tetrarchy resided in a council of the ulmen, who assembled annually in a large plain.

From Project Gutenberg

It is as if the four quarters of the Roman Empire at the time of the Tetrarchy had called upon the barbarians of the whole universe to devour each other.

From Project Gutenberg

They called it the Club of the Tetrarchy, because they thought it grand to have a Greek name.

From Project Gutenberg