HIERARCHY

n.

4 definitions — Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


1.
n.

Dominion or authority in sacred things.

2.
n.

A body of officials disposed organically in ranks and orders each subordinate to the one above it; a body of ecclesiastical rulers.

3.
n.

A form of government administered in the church by patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, and, in an inferior degree, by priests. Shipley.

4.
n.

A rank or order of holy beings. Standards and gonfalons . . . for distinction serve Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees. Milton.


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