hierarchy
noun
Did you know?
What did hierarchy originally mean?
The earliest meaning of hierarchy in English has to do with the ranks of different types of angels in the celestial order. The idea of categorizing groups according to rank readily transferred to the organization of priestly or other governmental rule. The word hierarchy is, in fact, related to a number of governmental words in English, such as monarchy, anarchy, and oligarchy, although it itself is now very rarely used in relation to government.
The word comes from the Greek hierarchēs, which was formed by combining the words hieros, meaning “supernatural, holy,” and archos, meaning. “ruler.” Hierarchy has continued to spread its meaning beyond matters ecclesiastical and governmental, and today is commonly found used in reference to any one of a number of different forms of graded classification.
Examples of hierarchy in a Sentence
Geraldine Brooks, Los Angeles Times, 30 Dec. 2001
Whereas the monkeys normally hew to strict hierarchies when it comes to who gets the best food and who grooms whom, there are no obvious top or rotten bananas in the sharing of millipede secretions.
—Natalie Angier, New York Times, 5 Dec. 2000
The idea that social order has to come from a centralized, rational, bureaucratic hierarchy was very much associated with the industrial age.
—Francis Fukuyama, Atlantic, May 1999
The church hierarchy faced resistance to some of their decisions.
He was at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy.
a rigid hierarchy of social classes
Alessia Glaviano, Vogue, 18 Mar. 2025
Saylor, famously bullish on bitcoin, said the cryptocurrency sits at the top of a hierarchy of assets as a digital commodity; followed by digital currencies, or stablecoins; tokenized stocks and bonds that can circulate 24/7; and finally, digital tokens.
—Tanaya MacHeel, CNBC, 17 Mar. 2025
Gray walls, harsh lighting, stiff hierarchies, mystifying rules, endless reams of paper: the tedium and repressiveness of bureaucratic work is proverbial.
—Charlie Tyson, The New Yorker, 15 Mar. 2025
Her research examines intergroup dynamics in complex, multi-level hierarchies, and factors that make overt discrimination challenging to detect.
—Harvard Business Review, 14 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hierarchy
Cite this Entry
“Hierarchy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hierarchy. Accessed 29 Mar. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
hierarchy
noun
Share