Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Diarchy
/ˈdaɪɑːki/noun
Government shared between two rulers of equal standing.
The Greek roots
δι-
di-
two, twice
ἀρχή
archḗ
rule, command
Literally: “rule of two”
The story of the word
Sparta ran one for centuries, with two kings drawn from two separate royal houses, each in a position to block the other. Rome built the same check into the consulship and added an annual expiry date. The spelling dyarchy, closer to the Greek upsilon, competes with diarchy and both are still in print.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
monarchyoligarchyanarchyhierarchy
In a sentence
What the constitution creates is a diarchy, and it works only while the two offices agree.