noun, plural hep·tar·chies.
- (often initial capital letter) the seven principal concurrent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms supposed to have existed in the 7th and 8th centuries.
- government by seven persons.
- an allied group of seven states or kingdoms, each under its own ruler.
noun plural -chies
- government by seven rulers
- a state divided into seven regions each under its own ruler
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- the seven kingdoms into which Anglo-Saxon England is thought to have been divided from about the 7th to the 9th centuries ad : Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria
- the period when this grouping existed