Faith & RitualGreek → English
Hieratic
/ˌhaɪəˈratɪk/adjective
Belonging to priests or priestly usage, and specifically the cursive Egyptian script used by scribes alongside hieroglyphs.
The Greek roots
ἱερατικός
hieratikós
priestly
Literally: “of the priests”
Follow a root:ἱερατικός1 word
The story of the word
Clement of Alexandria, writing around AD 200, is the source of the labels: he divided Egyptian writing into hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic, priestly script against the people's script. Hieratic is simply hieroglyphs written fast with a reed brush, the way handwriting relates to print. In art criticism the word means stiff, frontal and formal, the manner of figures made for worship rather than for the eye.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
hierarchyhierophanthieroglyphhierodule
In a sentence
The papyrus is hieratic, so the signs run together and take practice to read.
There is something hieratic about the way the figures face straight out at you.