Hierarchy Meaning
/ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
nounA social, religious, economic or political system or organization in which people or groups of people are ranked with some superior to others based on their status, authority or some other trait.
Sentence Examples
The hierarchy of rank has long been fixed.
There's a very rigid hierarchy in the Civil Service.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The social ____ determines who has more power and status in the group.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the social ____ of the wolf pack, the alpha pair is always at the very top of the group.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English ierarchie, jerarchie, from Old French ierarchie, jerarchie, from Late Latin ierarchia, from Latin hierarchia, from Ancient Greek ἱεραρχία (hierarkhía, “rule of a high priest”), from ἱεράρχης (hierárkhēs, “high priest”), from ἱερός (hierós, “holy”) + ἄρχω (árkhō, “to rule”), equivalent to hiero- + -archy. The H was re-added c. 1500 due to influence from Classical Latin.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Gay men and bisexuals were blamed for the [AIDS] epidemic for much the same reason that the church hierarchy in the Middle Ages accused Jewish people of creating bubonic plague by "poisoning the wells.""
— 2007 May 26, Leslie Feinberg, “Care & prevention, not repression”, in Workers World:
"The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account."
— 2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2023:
"Social defeat arises in strict social hierarchies in which the few dominate the many. Overcrowding exacerbates the many ills of social defeat within these social hierarchies based on dominance."
— 2023 June 7, Charles Hugh Smith, Look Around and What Do You See? Social Defeat, archived from the original on 09 Jun 2023:
"... the surviving portions provide enough detail to outline its principal features: the hierarchy of beings to whom his liturgy was to be addressed (we previously considered Plethon's hierarchy of gods in our examination of his Summary[…]"
— 2017 June 1, Peter Mark Adams, The Game of Saturn: Decoding the Sola-Busca Tarocchi, Scarlet Imprint, →ISBN, page 158:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The social ____ determines who has more power and status in the group.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the social ____ of the wolf pack, the alpha pair is always at the very top of the group.