hierarchy Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system
    • put honesty first in her hierarchy of values
  2. noun the organization of people at different ranks in an administrative body
    pecking order; power structure.

WordNet

Hi"er*arch`y noun
Etymology
Gr. : cf. F. hiérarchie.
Wordforms
plural Hierarchies
Definitions
  1. Dominion or authority in sacred things.
  2. A body of officials disposed organically in ranks and orders each subordinate to the one above it; a body of ecclesiastical rulers.
  3. A form of government administered in the church by patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, and, in an inferior degree, by priests. Shipley.
  4. A rank or order of holy beings.
    Standards and gonfalons . . . for distinction serve Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees. Milton.
    5. Any group of objects ranked so that every one but the topmost is subordinate to a specified one above it. The ordering relation between each object and the one above is called a "hierarchical relation"

Webster 1913