▪ I. heptarch, n.
(ˈhɛptɑːk)
[f. hepta- + Gr. -αρχος ruling, ruler: cf. heptarchy and tetrarch.]
A ruler of one of seven divisions of a country; one of the rulers of the Heptarchy.
| 1822 Blackw. Mag. XII. 410 Ere yet the bloody Heptarch had controll'd, Or yet Northumbria knew the Saxon's power. 1853 Landor Popery xi. 33. |
† b. A seventh king: with reference to Rev. xvii. 9–11. Obs.
| 1679 Harby Key Script. ii. 27 The Secular successive Heptarch of the Apostacy of Antichrist. |
So hepˈtarchal, hepˈtarchic, hepˈtarchical adjs., of or pertaining to a heptarchy, esp. to the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. † ˈheptarchist = heptarch.
| 1782 Warton Hist. Kiddington (1783) 48 In 752, the Saxon heptarchists, Cuthred and Ethelbald, fought a desperate battle at Beorgford, or Burford. Ibid. 69 The Saxons practised this mode of fixing the several extents of their heptarchic empire. 1854 Fraser's Mag. XLIX. 152 We should return to the heptarchical regime of local self-government. 1859 C. Barker Assoc. Princ. i. 7 Many of the heptarchal kings..exchanging the crown for the cowl. 1874 Stubbs Const. Hist. I. vii. 171 The heptarchic king was as much stronger than the tribal king, as the king of united England was stronger than the heptarchic king. |
▪ II. heptarch, a. Bot.
(ˈhɛptɑːk)
[f. Gr. ἑπτά seven + ἀρχή beginning, origin: cf. diarch, monarch, octarch, polyarch, tetrarch, triarch adjs.]
Arising from seven distinct points of origin, as the xylem of the root of some plants.
| 1884 [see decarch a.]. 1914 M. Drummond tr. Haberlandt's Physiol. Plant Anat. vii. 353 (caption) The heptarch radial bundle [sc. stele] of an adventitious root. 1951 McLean & Ivimey-Cook Textb. Theoretical Bot. I. xx. 791 Dicotyledons usually have two..four..or five xylem groups, less frequently three (triarch) or seven (heptarch), and rarely more. |