{Hieratic character}, a mode of ancient Egyptian writing; a
modified form of hieroglyphics, tending toward a cursive
hand and formerly supposed to be the sacerdotal character,
as the demotic was supposed to be that of the people.
It was a false notion of the Greeks that of the
three kinds of writing used by the Egyptians, two --
for that reason called hieroglyphic and hieratic --
were employed only for sacred, while the third, the
demotic, was employed for secular, purposes. No such
distinction is discoverable on the more ancient
Egyptian monuments; bur we retain the old names
founded on misapprehension. --W. H. Ward
(Johnson's
Cyc.).