Hierarchy

Part of speech: noun (n.)

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.