hieratic

1. 1.

   associated with the priesthood or priests

   “priestly (or sacerdotal) vestments”

   “hieratic gestures”

   Synonymspriestlyhieraticalsacerdotal
2. 2.

   written or belonging to a cursive form of ancient Egyptian writing

   “hieratic Egyptian script”
3. 3.

   adhering to fixed types or methods; highly restrained and formal

   “the more hieratic sculptures leave the viewer curiously unmoved”

   Similarnonrepresentational

   fine arts

1. 1.

   a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics; used especially by the priests

   Synonymshieratic script

   Broaderhieroglyph

   NarrowerDemotic

Other forms of hieratic

plural

hieratics·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hieratic

What does hieratic mean?

hieratic means "associated with the priesthood or priests". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hieratic?

hieratic has 3 syllables: hie-ra-tic. The stress falls on "ra".

What is another word for hieratic?

Close synonyms include priestly, hieratical, sacerdotal, hieratic script. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hieratic a common word?

hieratic is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.