hegemony: [16] Hegemony ‘dominating influence of one nation over another’ etymologically denotes ‘leadership’. It was borrowed from Greek hēgemoníā ‘authority, rule’, a derivative of the verb hegeisthai ‘lead’ (to which English seek is distantly related). => seek
hegemony (n.)
1560s, from Greek hegemonia "leadership, a leading the way, a going first;" also "the authority or sovereignty of one city-state over a number of others," as Athens in Attica, Thebes in Boeotia; from hegemon "leader," from hegeisthai "to lead," perhaps originally "to track down," from PIE *sag-eyo-, from root *sag- "to seek out, track down, trace" (see seek). Originally of predominance of one city state or another in Greek history; in reference to modern situations from 1860, at first of Prussia in relation to other German states.