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  1. hieratic love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Of or associated with sacred persons or offices; sacerdotal.
  2. adj. Constituting or relating to a simplified cursive style of Egyptian hieroglyphics, used in both sacred and secular writings.
  3. adj. Extremely formal or stylized, as in a work of art.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Pertaining to priests or to the priesthood; priestly; sacerdotal.
  2. Of sacred or priestly origin; due to or derived from religious use or influence: specifically used of a kind of ancient Egyptian letters or writing, and of certain styles in art. Hieratic writing consists of abridged forms of hieroglyphics adopted by the Egyptian priests for convenience and expedition in their records. Hieratic art is that which adheres to types or methods fixed and, as it were, consecrated by religious tradition, as in some Egyptian art, and in much modern Greek or Byzantine religious painting, which is still medieval in character.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. of or pertaining to priests, especially pharaonic priests of ancient Egypt; sacerdotal.
  2. adj. of or pertaining to the cursive writing system developed by ancient Egyptian priests alongside the hieroglyphic system.
  3. adj. literature, etc. extremely stylized, restrained or formal; adhering to fixed types or methods; severe in emotional import.
  4. n. 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.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Consecrated to sacred uses; sacerdotal; pertaining to priests.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. associated with the priesthood or priests
  2. n. a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics; used especially by the priests
  3. adj. written or belonging to a cursive form of ancient Egyptian writing
  4. adj. adhering to fixed types or methods; highly restrained and formal

Etymologies

  1. Latin hieraticus, from Ancient Greek ἱερατικός (hieratikos), from ἱερατεία (hierateia, "priesthood"), from ἱερᾶτεύω ("be a priest"), from ἱερεύς (hiereus, "priest"), from ἱερός (hieros, "sacred"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin hierāticus, from Greek hierātikos, from hierāteia, priesthood, from hierāsthai, to be a priest, from hiereus, priest, from hieros, holy; see eis- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “After the Egyptologists of the school of De Rouge 36 thought they had demonstrated that the familiar symbols of the Phoenician alphabet had been copied from that modified form of Egyptian hieroglyphics known as the hieratic writing, the Assyriologists came forward to prove that certain characters of the Babylonian syllabary also show a likeness to the alphabetical characters that seemingly could not be due to chance.”

    A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume I: The Beginnings of Science

  • “It is known as the hieratic script; and the material invented for the use of the scribe was papyrus.”

    Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers

  • “This cursive writing, which was somewhat incorrectly termed hieratic, was used only for public or private documents, for administrative correspondence, or for the propagation of literary, scientific, and religious works.”

    History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)

  • “The variations presented by the three existing copies prove that the original was in the primitive mode of writing called the hieratic, a character which must have already become difficult to decipher in the eighth century B.C., as the copyists have differed as to the interpretation to be given to certain signs, and in other cases have simply reproduced exactly the forms of such as they did not understand.”

    Atlantis : the antediluvian world

  • “When she had stood about the room there had been a kind of hieratic dignity about her; she had that sanctioned effect upon the eye which is given by someone adequately imitating the pose of some famous picture or statue.”

    The Judge

  • “Salammbô is as inarticulate for us as the serpent, to whose drowsy beauty, capable of such sudden awakenings, hers seems half akin; they move before us in a kind of hieratic pantomime, a coloured, expressive thing, signifying nothing.”

    Figures of Several Centuries

  • “And very many of the Egyptian books are written in this kind of broken-down hieroglyphic, which is called "hieratic," or priestly writing.”

    Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt

  • “The treatment of the head and hair is distinctly Cypriote in style, while the rigidity of the pose, and the "hieratic" position of the feet and arms, are as distinctly Egyptian.”

    Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers

  • “Nothing has yet been said about the cursive writings of the Egyptians; but they had two cursive writings – namely, the "hieratic," and the "demotic.”

    Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers

  • “The Strangford Apollo, the Apollo of Thera, and the Apollo of Tenea, are even represented in the canonical, or "hieratic" attitude, with clenched hands, and arms straightened to the sides, which stamps all Egyptian figure-sculpture in stone.”

    Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. sacerdotal
  1. priestly

equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘hieratic’

  1. nonrepresentational

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. hieroglyphic
  2. uncial
  3. functions
  4. ideographic
  1. hierarchal
  2. legible
  3. recently-discovered
  4. cuneiform
  1. at-ease
  2. alphabetic
  3. magisterial
  4. cursive
  1. hieroglyphical
  2. funerary
  3. warlike
  4. apostolical
  1. half-clad
  2. queenly
  3. calligraphic
  4. Ruthenian
  1. anti-scientific
  2. sacramental

reverse dictionary (5)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. demotic
  1. demotic script
  1. hieratical
  1. demotic alphabet
  1. hierogram

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  • johnmperry cf demotic Jun 20, 2008

  • yarb Citation on gamin. Jun 20, 2008

  • ofravens Where bees ... sleep out the blizzard
    Like hieratic stones, and the ground is hard.
    from "Electra on Azalea Path," Sylvia Plath Apr 6, 2008

  • chained_bear "Pullings turned to Norton, the mate of the watch, and said, 'Make it twelve,' in a strong, hieratic voice."
    --P. O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 221

    Aah. Now I get why the guy on that one tarot card is called "the hierophant." Mar 16, 2008

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‘hieratic’ has been looked up 3009 times, loved by 2 people, added to 46 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 13.