hierarchy
    n 1: a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a
         system; "put honesty first in her hierarchy of values"
    2: the organization of people at different ranks in an
       administrative body [syn: hierarchy, power structure,
       pecking order]

Hierarchy \Hi"er*arch`y\ (h[imac]"[~e]r*[aum]rk`[y^]), n.; pl.
   Hierarchies (h[imac]"[~e]r*[aum]rk`[i^]z). [Gr.
   'ierarchi`a: cf. F. hi['e]rarchie.]
   1. Dominion or authority in sacred things.
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   2. A body of officials disposed organically in ranks and
      orders each subordinate to the one above it; a body of
      ecclesiastical rulers.
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   3. A form of government administered in the church by
      patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, and, in
      an inferior degree, by priests. --Shipley.
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   4. A rank or order of holy beings.
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            Standards and gonfalons . . . for distinction serve
            Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees. --Milton.

   5. (Math., Logic, Computers) Any group of objects ranked so
      that every one but the topmost is subordinate to a
      specified one above it; also, the entire set of ordering
      relations between such objects. The ordering relation
      between each object and the one above is called a
      hierarchical relation.

   Note: Classification schemes, as in biology, usually form
         hierarchies.
         [PJC]

hierarchy

   An organisation with few things, or one thing, at the top and
   with several things below each other thing.  An inverted tree
   structure.  Examples in computing include a directory
   hierarchy where each directory may contain files or other
   directories; a hierarchical network (see hierarchical
   routing), a class hierarchy in object-oriented
   programming.

   (1994-10-11)

HIERARCHY, eccl. law. A hierarchy signified, originally, power of the 
priest; for in the beginning of societies, the priests were entrusted with 
all the power but, among the priests themselves, there were different 
degrees of power and authority, at the summit of which was the sovereign 
pontiff, and this was called the hierarchy. Now it signifies, not so much 
the power of the priests as the border of power.