chiefery

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   The status or role of a chief

   The status or role of a chief; chieftainship.

2. 2

   The land ruled over by a chief

   The land ruled over by a chief; chieftainship.

   • I have said that Tautira was a large and powerful chiefery on the eastern side of the peninsula Taiarapu, which was balanced by Teahupoo, another large chiefery at the southern end.
   • There was no king, but each district or chiefery had an independent ruler who inherited under the law of primogeniture and traced his descent by a most carefully-kept genealogical system to almost incredible antiquity.
   • Their chiefery was co-extensive with the present barony of Clare, in Co. Galway.
3. 3

   The form of government in which people are ruled by a chief.

   • The conquest of new territories made it possible for the Zarma society to settle in hamlets and develop a political organization that assumed the characteristics of a chiefery.
   • Charles Massi, one of his former ministers, who has become one of his fiercest opponents, declared that "Ange-Félix Patassé belongs to the school which mistakes the Presidency of the Republic for traditional chiefery.
   • Through his policy of the grands qa'ids, he brought an end to siba, or tribal dissidence, putting in its place a corrupt and archaic chiefery who oppressed the rural masses and held them perennially in check.
4. ›+ 3 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A colonial administrative centre.

      • After dinner at the chiefery we assembled on the courtyard veranda to hear the singing of the Papara himeme chorus.
      • These villages are located two or three kilometers from each chiefery or mission post.
      • For example, when the European colonizers arrived, they demanded that a chief be appointed as the responsible party for the chiefery or administrative cell, according to a natural division of a territory.
   2. 5

      The leaders or chiefs of a people, collectively.

      • If, as seems certain, the Hui Arii contingent intermarried with the local chiefery, this acceptance of the gods of the land would have been inevitable.
      • This is for certaine known, that much about this time, he, together with the chiefery, or greatest men of Ulster, by secret parleys combined in an association that they would defend the Romish religion.
   3. 6

      An Irish head tax

      • The outsider was aware that payment of chiefery to the lord was the norm, but that some within the lordship were refusing to pay it.

The neighborhood

• synonymleadership
• synonymmanagement