hierarchy
/ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/noun
hierarchy is spelled H-I-E-R-A-R-C-H-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is heirarchy: about 570 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 14 of all searches for the word. Hierarchy is a noun meaning “A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks”. The plural of hierarchy is hierarchies.
How many letters and syllables are in hierarchy?
| Letters | 9: H-I-E-R-A-R-C-H-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 6.0 times per million words; the 9,878th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 3; the most searched, heirarchy, about 570 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell hierarchy?
Hierarchy is spelled H-I-E-R-A-R-C-H-Y. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for hierarchy in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is hierarchy?
Hierarchy appears 6.0 times per million words in written English, the 9,878th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hierarchy?
- /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/
- /ˈhaɪ.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/
- /ˈhaɪ.ɑː(ɹ).ki/
Hierarchy has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-hierarchy.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hierarchy
- hierarchies plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hierarchy mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hierarchy in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hiérarchie |
| German | Hierarchie , Rangordnung |
| Portuguese | hierarquia |
| Spanish | jerarquía, hierarquía (disused) |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hierarchy come from?
From Middle English ierarchie, jerarchie, from Old French ierarchie, jerarchie, from Late Latin ierarchia, from Latin hierarchia, from Ancient Greek ἱεραρχία (hierarkhía, “rule of a high priest”), from ἱεράρχης (hierárkhēs, “high priest”), from ἱερός (hierós, “holy”) + ἄρχω (árkhō, “to rule”), equivalent to hiero- + -archy. The H was re-added c. 1500 due to influence from Classical Latin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).