hierarchy

noun

hi·​er·​ar·​chy ˈhī-(ə-)ˌrär-kē 

also ˈhi(-ə)r-ˌär-

plural hierarchies

1

: a body of persons in authority

2

: the classification of a group of people according to ability or to economic, social, or professional standing

also : the group so classified

3

a

: a ruling body of clergy organized into orders or ranks each subordinate to the one above it

especially : the bishops of a province or nation

b

: church government by a hierarchy

4

: a graded or ranked series

a hierarchy of values

5

: a division of angels

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.

Synonyms of hierarchy

• ladder
• ranking
• scale

Examples of hierarchy in a Sentence

… he wrote a verse whose metaphors were read somewhere in the Baathist hierarchy as incitement to Kurdish nationalism. —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

Recent Examples on the Web

There are different roles for George Syrianos, Pedro Ferreira and Andy Reid within the Forest hierarchy, as the club has undergone a restructuring behind the scenes. — Paul Taylor, New York Times, 19 Aug. 2026

Other defense research functions that sat well within the existing hierarchy, such as mission-specific R & D tied to each service’s existing weapons systems, stayed within the branches. — Jennifer Pahlka, Foreign Affairs, 18 Aug. 2026

While mapping these structural hierarchies is a foundational data modeling challenge, the piece that most organizations completely underestimate is the dynamic signal layer. — Filip Popovic, Forbes.com, 18 Aug. 2026

Estrangement often happens when these two ideas of family collide and cannot be reconciled – when one member insists that biological or origin ties and hierarchies reinforce the family unit, and another insists that behavior does. — Rin Reczek, The Conversation, 17 Aug. 2026

Word History

Etymology

Middle English ierarchie rank or order of holy beings, from Anglo-French jerarchie, from Medieval Latin hierarchia, from Late Greek, from Greek hierarchēs

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 5

Phrases Containing hierarchy

• celestial hierarchy

Rhymes for hierarchy

• autarky
• menarche
• arche
• sparky
• matriarchy
• oligarchy
• patriarchy

Kids Definition

hierarchy

noun

hi·​er·​ar·​chy ˈhī-(ə-)ˌrär-kē 

plural hierarchies

1

: a ruling body especially of clergy organized into ranks

2

a

: an arrangement into a series according to rank

b

: persons or things arranged in ranks or classes