hierophant
/ˈhaɪəɹəˌfænt/noun
hierophant is spelled H-I-E-R-O-P-H-A-N-T. The wrong spelling people search most is heirophant: about 260 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Hierophant is a noun meaning “An ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries”. The plural of hierophant is hierophants or hierophantes.
How do you spell hierophant?
Hierophant is spelled H-I-E-R-O-P-H-A-N-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for hierophant in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
What does hierophant mean?
noun
- 1
An ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
- 2
An interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge.
- 3
One who explains or makes a commentary.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hierophant?
- /ˈhaɪəɹəˌfænt/
- /ˈhaɪɹəˌfænt/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Eleanorrrrrrrrrr-hierophant.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hierophant
- hierophants plural
- hierophantes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hierophant?
Hierophant appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 117,098th 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).
Hierophant in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense ancient Greek priest:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hiérophante |
| German | Hierophant |
| Portuguese | hierofante |
| Spanish | hierofante |
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 hierophant come from?
From Ancient Greek ἱεροφάντης (hierophántēs, from ἱερός (hierós, “holy”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “I show, make known”)).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).