different between hierarchy vs thearchy

English

Etymology

From Middle English ierarchie, jerarchie, from Old French ierarchie, jerarchie, from Late Latin ierarchia, from Latin hierarchia, from Ancient Greek ???????? (hierarkhía, “rule of a high priest”), from ???????? (hierárkh?s, “high priest”), from ????? (hierós, “holy”) + ???? (árkh?, “I rule”). The H was re-added c. 1500 due to influence from Classical Latin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ha?.?.???(?).ki/, /?ha?.???(?).ki/

Noun

hierarchy (plural hierarchies)

1. A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
2. A 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.
3. Any group of objects ranked so that every one but the topmost is subordinate to a specified one above it.

Related terms

• hierarch
• hierarchic
• hierarchical
• hierarchically
• hierarchize
• hierarchization

Translations

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ??????? (thearkhía), from ???? (theós, “god”) + -????? (-arkhía, “rule, ruling”).

Noun

thearchy (countable and uncountable, plural thearchies)

1. A government ruled by God or a god; a theocracy.
   • 1643, Subject of Supremacie, 42:

     There ends Monarchy as a Thearchie, or divine dynastie.

   • 1643, Maximes Unfolded, 8:

     Thearchie, or Gods Government in Families, a Nation, and all Nations.

   • 1863, G.J. Whyte-Melville, Gladiators, I?254:

     [The Jew's] belief in that direct thearchy, to which he was bound by the ties of gratitude.

2. A system or ordering of deities. (Compare pantheon.)
   • 1852, P.J. Bailey, Festus, 11:

     From rank to rank in Thearchy divine, We angel raylets gladden in thy sight.

   • 1876, W.E. Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 245:

     Pan was one of the younger gods in the Hellenic thearchy.

   • 1899 Dec. 1, Literary Guide, 178?1:

     When Jesus entered upon his ministry, the Olympian thearchy […] was already tottering to its fall.

Related terms

• thearch (1)
• theocracy (1)
• hierarchy (2)

References

Anagrams

• hatchery