Hi"er*arch`y (?), n.; pl. Hierarchies (#). [Gr. : cf. F. hi'erarchie.] 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.
© Webster 1913. | 
