hieratic
/ˌhaɪ(ə)ˈɹætɪk/adjective, noun
hieratic is an adjective meaning “Of or pertaining to priests or other religious authorities, especially pharaonic priests of Ancient Egypt” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-I-E-R-A-T-I-C, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does hieratic mean?
adjective
- 1
Of or pertaining to priests or other religious authorities, especially pharaonic priests of Ancient Egypt.
- 2
Of or pertaining to the cursive writing system that developed alongside the hieroglyphic system as its ordinary handwritten counterpart.
- 3
Extremely stylized, restrained or formal; adhering to fixed types or methods; severe in emotional import.
Some of the more hieratic sculptures leave the viewer curiously unmoved.
noun
- 1
A writing system used in pharaonic Egypt that was developed alongside the hieroglyphic system, primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus, allowing scribes to write quickly without resorting to the time consuming hieroglyphs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hieratic?
- /ˌhaɪ(ə)ˈɹætɪk/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-hieratic.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hieratic
- hieratics plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hieratic?
Hieratic appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 110,368th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Hieratic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | hieratisch |
| Portuguese | hierático |
| Spanish | hierático |
| French | hiératique |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hieratic come from?
From Latin hieraticus, from Ancient Greek ἱερατικός (hieratikós), from ἱερατεία (hierateía, “priesthood”), from ἱερατεύω (hierateúō, “be a priest”), from ἱερεύς (hiereús, “priest”), from ἱερός (hierós, “sacred”). Use pertaining to the Egyptian writing system originates with the Greek phrase γράμματα ἱερατικά (grámmata hieratiká, literally “priestly writing”), which was first used by Saint Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century AD, as at that time hieratic was used only for religious texts, as had been the case for the previous thousand years.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).