Hieratic

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˌhaɪ(ə)ˈɹætɪk/

Definitions

1. relating to priests or priesthood, or denoting a simplified form of ancient Egyptian script used for everyday religious and administrative purposes
2. of or pertaining to sacred priests or their authority, or describing the cursive Egyptian writing system derived from hieroglyphics
3. Associated with priests or the functions of the priestly class ; pertaining to a handwritten form of Egyptian writing used mainly for religious documents and daily affairs

Etymology: Ancient Egyptians wrote in two main scripts, and the cursive one that scribes used for everyday and administrative texts was later given a name that has nothing to do with Egypt. The Greek phrase "grammata hieratika" meant "priestly writing," and it was first applied this way by Saint Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century AD. Clement used it because this simplified script had been reserved for religious texts for roughly a thousand years, even though its everyday use in Egypt had been widespread from much earlier. The adjective itself comes from the Greek "hieratikos," "of a priest," built from "hiereus" (priest) and "hieros" (sacred). It passed into Latin as "hieraticus" and then into English with the same sense of belonging to priests. Egyptologists later kept the Greek label for the Egyptian script, so this sense of the word still names an ancient writing system, which the Greek speakers who coined it had no way of knowing.

Synonyms: sacred, religious, ritualistic, spiritual, ceremonial

Antonyms: secular, profane, mundane, ordinary, common