heterarchy
UK/ˈhɛtəɹɑːkɪ/
heterarchy noun: the rule of an alien; rule from without; government by an extraterritorial power.
Noun
heterarchy (countable and uncountable, plural heterarchies)
- The rule of an alien; rule from without; government by an extraterritorial power.
- Despite installing puppet governments in the marches, the subjects of the empire’s conquered territories were still very conscious of living under heterarchy.
- An example of this government.
- The proposed liberation of our largely undeveloped economy goes too far — the resulting foreign dominance of our markets would make us a heterarchy.
- A system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non-hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways.
- When a group operates as a heterarchy, everyone is a leader in their own domain.
Forms of heterarchy
| plural | heterarchies |
|---|
Origin of heterarchy
From heter- (“other, different”) + -archy (“rule”).; equivalent to Katharevousa ἑτεραρχία (eterarchía) / Dimotiki ετεραρχία (eterarchía).
Words formed from heterarchy
Questions about heterarchy
- What does heterarchy mean?
- Heterarchy means the rule of an alien; rule from without; government by an extraterritorial power.
- What part of speech is heterarchy?
- Heterarchy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce heterarchy?
- Heterarchy is pronounced /ˈhɛtəɹɑːkɪ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of heterarchy?
- The plural of heterarchy is heterarchies.
Words near heterarchy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: heterarchy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “heterarchy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heterarchy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.