Demotic

//dɪˈmɑ.tɪk// adj, name, noun

adj, name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Language as spoken or written by the common people. countable, uncountable

    "Near-synonym: vernacular"

  2. 2
    the modern Greek vernacular wordnet
  3. 3
    a simplified cursive form of the ancient hieratic script wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or for the common people. not-comparable

    "demotic writing style"

  2. 2
    Of, relating to, or written in the ancient Egyptian script that developed from Lower Egyptian hieratic writing starting from around 650 BCE and was chiefly used to write the Demotic phase of the Egyptian language, with simplified and cursive characters that no longer corresponded directly to their hieroglyphic precursors. not-comparable
  3. 3
    Of, relating to, or written in the form of modern vernacular Greek. not-comparable

    "demotic Greek"

Adjective
  1. 1
    of or for the common people wordnet
  2. 2
    of or written in or belonging to the form of modern Greek based on colloquial use wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The demotic Egyptian script, used from c. 650 BCE to 452 CE.

    "Regarding the ranges of these palaeographic areas, the terms mentioned might again be misleading to a nonadept, who, for example, has to know that the Delta is mostly uncharted territory in regard to Demotic palaeography (due to the lack of sources from this area)."

  2. 2
    The demotic Egyptian language, spoken from c. 650 BCE to 400 BCE.

Synonyms

All synonyms
colloquialcommondemotic languagedemotic scriptdemotic scriptenchorial

Antonyms

All antonyms
formal

Example

More examples

"Anything grandiose or historically based tends to sound flat and banal when it reaches English, partly because translators get stuck between contradictory imperatives: juggling fidelity to the original sense with what is vocally viable, they tend to resort to a genteel fustian which lacks either poetic resonance or demotic realism, adding to a sense of artificiality rather than enhancing credibility."

Etymology

First attested in 1822, from Ancient Greek δημοτικός (dēmotikós, “common”), from δημότης (dēmótēs, “commoner”), from δῆμος (dêmos, “the common people”).

Related phrases

demotic greek

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.