![]() The range of types of rule or government comprehended by English words with each ending is extremely broad, and I don't see any pattern in the choice of one or the other that offers a reliable basis for predicting which ending a new form is more likely to adopt. For example, a monarch (Greek monos, alone or single) is a sovereign head of state, in a type of government called monarchy.Īmong the words Quinion lists in a table headed " -cracy Government, rule, or influence," are these:Īristocracy, autocracy, bureaucracy, democracy, gerontocracy, meritocracy, mobocracy, plutocracy, theocracyĪmong the words that Quinion lists in a table headed " -archy Government or rule" are these:Īnarchy, autarchy, hierarchy, matriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, patriarchy, synarchyīecause many English speakers when presented with the suffix -archy may think first of monarchy and when presented with the suffix -cracy may think first of democracy, they may suppose that a stronger distinction exists between the tendencies of the two suffixes than actually exists. They correspond to nouns in -arch for a person or people who rule or command in that way. Words in -archy are abstract nouns for types of government, leadership, or social influence or organization. ![]() Government rule of a particular type a chief or ruler. Many forms ending in -cracy have been coined, though only a small number are at all well known most can mean either a system of influence or rule or a society o ruled, as with democracy, rule through elected representatives a few can also refer to the rulers as a group, as with aristocracy (Greek aristos, best), rule by members of the highest social class. cracy Also -crat, -cratic, and -cratical. Michael Quinion, Ologies and Isms: Word Beginnings and Endings (Oxford, 2002) has this to say about the suffixes: Today both -archy and -cracy are centrally associated with the idea of ruling. ![]() According to Liddell & Scott, An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon (1889), the root word κρατος ( kratos) in ancient Greek meant " strength, might"-and more generally, " power" or " rule, sway, sovereignty." The same lexicon reports that αρχη ( arche) meant "a beginning, origin, first cause," but also " the first place or power, sovereignty, dominion, command." The Greek roots thus have considerable overlap, but the connotations of αρχη may have included a stronger sense of hereditary or historical primacy than those of κρατος.
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