[mod. f. prec. + -CY; (cf. captaincy); after infancy, lieutenancy, etc., in which the suffix, really -y, is apparently -cy.]
The rank or position of chieftain; government by a chieftain; = the earlier CHIEFTAINRY.
1817. Month. Rev., LXXXVIII. 203. Edward Davis having succeeded to the chieftaincy.
1835. Coleridge, in Fraser’s Mag., XII. 494. The Greek chieftancies, had … passed into Constitutions.
1858. Gladstone, Homer, I. 459. The chieftaincies of the Celtic tribes.
