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Jun 2, 2011 This week's theme Words made with combining forms This week's words logorrhea necrology phycology hagiocracy paleography Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg hagiocracy PRONUNCIATION: (hag-ee-OK-ruh-see, hay-jee-) MEANING: noun: A government by holy persons. Also a place thus governed. ETYMOLOGY: From Greek hagio- (holy) + -cracy (rule). Two synonyms of this term are hagiarchy and hierocracy. Also, literally speaking, hierarchy is the rule of the high priest. Earliest documented use: 1846. USAGE: "But money has assumed a more exalted place in the Fed's hagiocracy in recent months." Alan Murray; Slow Money Growth Stirs Worry at Fed; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Jul 29, 1991. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

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