General knowledge · Words & language

The suffix "-cracy" and "-archy"

From Greek kratos and arkhē

Etymology — the Greek words for power and rule

Almost every English word for a system of government ends in one of two Greek elements: kratos, meaning strength or power, or arkhē, meaning rule or beginning. The first gives democracy, aristocracy, plutocracy and bureaucracy; the second gives monarchy, oligarchy, hierarchy and anarchy. Both were productive in ancient Greek and have stayed productive ever since, which is why English can coin kakistocracy for rule by the worst and kleptocracy for rule by thieves without anybody needing an explanation.

How to spot them

▸Two Greek nouns: one means strength, the other means rule
▸One of them is also the word for a beginning, as in archaic and archaeology
▸Rule by the worst, rule by the mob, rule by the old — all have names
▸A 1958 satire coined the word for rule by the talented, and meant it as a warning

Key facts

Two Greek nouns, one meaning strength or power and one meaning rule or beginning, lie behind nearly every English name for a system of government

Kratos and arkhē; kratos was also a minor deity, a child of Pallas and Styx

Michael Young's satire of 1958 coined the word for rule by the talented, and intended it as a dystopia (1958)

The Rise of the Meritocracy; Young lived to complain that politicians had taken it as a compliment

Rule by the worst, built on a Greek superlative and used in English since the seventeenth century

Kakistocracy, from kakistos, worst; popularised by Thomas Love Peacock in 1829

Polybius's name for the degenerate form of popular government, built on the Greek for a crowd

Ochlocracy, from ochlos, mob

Vincent de Gournay's eighteenth-century coinage for rule by the writing desk

Bureaucracy; bureau originally meant the baize cloth that covered a desk

Plato's Republic ranks five constitutions in order of decline, from the rule of the best down to the tyrant

Aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny

The traditional grouping of the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons under a single Greek-derived word

The Heptarchy — Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex

Diocletian's division of the Roman empire in 293 among two senior and two junior emperors (293)

The Tetrarchy

Key ideas

Aristotle's Politics sorts constitutions by how many rule and in whose interest, giving three good forms and three corruptions: monarchy against tyranny, aristocracy against oligarchy, and polity against democracy.

Quick-fire facts

•Kratos means strength or power; arkhē means rule, and also beginning — hence archaic, archetype and archaeology
•Democracy is from dēmos, the people, and is first attested in fifth-century Athens
•Timocracy, from timē (honour), is Plato's name for the Spartan constitution, in which the ambitious rule
•Anarchy is literally 'without a ruler'; hierarchy originally meant the rule of a high priest, and was applied to the ranks of angels by Pseudo-Dionysius
•Meritocracy was coined by the sociologist Michael Young in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958), as a pejorative
•Bureaucracy comes from French bureaucratie, generally credited to Vincent de Gournay around 1745
•Technocracy was coined in 1919 by the Californian engineer William Henry Smyth
•Kleptocracy, gerontocracy, plutocracy and theocracy are all built on the same element
•The Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy is a conventional grouping of seven kingdoms; the term itself is post-medieval
•Diocletian established the Tetrarchy in 293, with two Augusti and two Caesars

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Sources

Aristotle — The Politics
Julia Cresswell — The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins