Thearchy

Origin

From Ancient Greek θεαρχία, from θεός ("god") + -αρχία ("rule, ruling").

Oxford English Dictionary. "Thearchy, n."

Full definition of thearchy

Noun

1. A government ruled by God or a god; a theocracy.
• 1643, Subject of Supremacie, 42:There ends Monarchy as a Thearchie, or divine dynastie.
• 1643, Maximes Unfolded, 8:Thearchie, or Gods Government in Families, a Nation, and all Nations.
• 1863, G.J. Whyte-Melville, Gladiators, I 254:Jew's belief in that direct thearchy, to which he was bound by the ties of gratitude.
2. A system or ordering of deities. Compare pantheon.
• 1852, P.J. Bailey, Festus, 11:From rank to rank in Thearchy divine, We angel raylets gladden in thy sight.
3. 1876, W.E. Gladstone, Homeric Synchronism, 245:
4. Pan was one of the younger gods in the Hellenic thearchy.
• 1899 Dec. 1, ''Literary Guide, 178 1:When Jesus entered upon his ministry, the Olympian thearchy...was already tottering to its fall.

Related terms

• thearch (1)
• theocracy (1)
• hierarchy (2)

Anagrams

• hatchery