hierarchy

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A body of persons having authority.
2. n. Categorization of a group of people according to ability or status.
3. n. The group so categorized.
4. n. A series in which each element is graded or ranked: put honesty first in her hierarchy of values.
5. n. A body of clergy organized into successive ranks or grades with each level subordinate to the one above.
6. n. Religious rule by a group of ranked clergy.
7. n. One of the divisions of angels.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The power or dominion of a hierarch; hallowed or consecrated authority in what concerns religious order or government.
2. n. Government by ecclesiastical rulers; an ecclesiastical or priestly form of government. —
3. n. An order of holy beings regarded as employed in divine government.
4. n. A body of persons organized in ranks and orders for the exercise of rule oversacred things; hence, an organized body of ecclesiastics intrusted with government of either church or state; also, a similarly organized body of officials in other systems of government: as, the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
5. n. In science, a series of successive terms of different rank. The terms kingdom, order, suborder, family, genus, and species constitute a hierarchy in zoölogy.

Wiktionary

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

GNU Webster's 1913

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.
4. n. A rank or order of holy beings.
5. n. 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.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system
2. n. the organization of people at different ranks in an administrative body