English dictionary · noun

oligarchy

A government run by and for only a few, often the aristocracy, the wealthy, or their friends and associates.

Meaning and definitions

1. A government run by and for only a few, often the aristocracy, the wealthy, or their friends and associates.
2. A state ruled by such a government.
3. Those who make up an oligarchic government.

Connected roots

• -archy

  rule, leader

Explore the word family

These words share a recorded root connection. A shared root is a learning clue; it does not establish every step in a word’s history.

• archbishop

  A senior bishop who is in charge of an archdiocese, and presides over a group of dioceses called a province (in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, etc.)

• hierarchy

  A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.

• monarchy

  a form of government with a monarch at the head

• anarchy

  The state of a society being without authorities or an authoritative governing body.

• patriarch

  The highest form of bishop, in the ancient world having authority over other bishops in the province but now generally as an honorary title; in Roman Catholicism, considered a bishop second only to the Pope in rank.

• aristocracy

  the highest class in society; government by a privileged class

• patriarchy

  A social system in which the father is head of the household, having authority over women and children, and in which lineage is traced through the male line.

• archdiocese

  A diocese administered by an archbishop.

• archangel

  A powerful angel that leads many other angels, but is still loyal to a deity, and often seen as belonging to a particular archangelical rank or order within a greater hierarchy of angels. (Judeo-Christian examples: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel).

• archduke

  The son or male-line grandson of an emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

• matriarch

  A female leader of a family, a tribe or an ethnic or religious group.

• matriarchy

  A social system in which the mother is head of household, having authority over men and children, and lineage is traced through the female line.

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