noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Government by ecclesiastics. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   a ruling body composed of clergy wordnet
3. 3
   The doctrine that the pope held supreme temporal, and not just spiritual, power. Middle-Ages, countable, historical, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms

aristocracyautarchyautonomycolonialismcommonwealthdemocracy

Etymology

From hiero- + -cracy.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.