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Hieroglyph, hieratic, hierogram: the words explained

14 October 2026

A hieroglyph is one sign. In most uses hieroglyphic is the adjective: a hieroglyphic inscription, the hieroglyphic script. Dictionaries also accept hieroglyphic as a noun, with or without a final s, but museum labels and Egyptology books say hieroglyphs for the signs.

Hieratic and demotic are the two handwritten scripts that grew out of hieroglyphs. Hierogram is a rare dictionary word for a sacred symbol. Cartouche and Gardiner code are the terms you meet as soon as you start reading names.

The Greek name means sacred carving

The words come from Greek hieroglyphikos, built from hieros, "sacred", and glyphein, "to carve". English took the adjective hieroglyphic from French in the 1580s. Merriam-Webster dates it to 1585 and the noun use to 1586.

The Egyptians called the script mdw nṯr ("medu netjer"), "the god's words". In writing, the cloth on a pole R8, nṯr, "god", comes first and the staff S43, mdw, "words", second, although the phrase is spoken the other way round: the god takes the front place out of respect.

Cloth on a pole Walking stick

Hieroglyph is the noun, hieroglyphic the adjective

Use the noun for the signs and the adjective for everything about them.

one hieroglyph, many hieroglyphs
a hieroglyphic inscription on a temple wall
the hieroglyphic script and its sign list
reading hieroglyphs, a course in hieroglyphic writing
a hieroglyph dictionary or a hieroglyphic dictionary

Hieratic and demotic were the handwriting

Hieratic is the cursive form of hieroglyphs, written in ink with a reed brush, usually on papyrus, and read from right to left. It appeared around 3200 to 3000 BC, almost as early as hieroglyphs themselves. Its name means "priestly": the Greek scholar Clement of Alexandria used it in the 2nd century AD, when priests were by then its main users.

Demotic took over everyday writing from about 650 BC. The name, from Greek dēmotikos, "popular", goes back to Herodotus. The Egyptians called it "document writing". It looks like a quick shorthand, with whole groups of signs joined into one stroke. Priests kept writing hieratic for religious books into the 3rd century AD.

Two of the three scripts ended at the same temple, the temple of Isis at Philae. The last dated hieroglyphic inscription, the graffito of Esmet-Akhom, dates to AD 394. The last dated demotic, also a graffito at Philae, to AD 452.

The Rosetta Stone carries three scripts

The Rosetta Stone, a decree of the priests at Memphis in 196 BC, ends by ordering its own text to be written "in sacred and native and Greek characters". Sacred means hieroglyphs, at the top. Native means demotic, 32 lines in the middle. Greek runs across the bottom.

Scholars made progress on the demotic first. In 1802 Silvestre de Sacy and Johan David Åkerblad found royal names in it by matching them with the Greek, which they could already read.

See the Rosetta Stone page

Hierogram means any sacred sign

Merriam-Webster defines hierogram as "a sacred emblem or graphic symbol", from hier-, "sacred", and -gram, "something drawn or written". It names a kind of symbol in any religion. Egyptologists give it no technical meaning: grammars and sign lists call the Egyptian signs hieroglyphs or simply signs.

An ankh on an amulet could fairly be called a hierogram in the dictionary sense. In a line of text the same ankh is a hieroglyph, read ꜥnḫ, "life".

Ankh

Readers of names meet cartouches and Gardiner codes

A cartouche is the oval ring around a king's name, the sign V10. The usual story is that French soldiers in Egypt named it after the paper cartridge of their muskets, also a cartouche. The Egyptians called it šnw ("shenu"), and it grew out of the round shen ring of protection. A king normally had two of his names written in one: the throne name and the birth name.

A Gardiner code is a sign's number in the list Alan Gardiner printed in his Egyptian Grammar in 1927. A letter gives the group, a number the place in it: A for men, G for birds, so A1 is the seated man and G17 the owl, m. The list has 26 groups: A to Z without J, plus Aa for signs whose object is unclear, such as Aa1, read ḫ. Codes let anyone name a sign in plain text.

Cartouche Seated man Owl Placenta

Look up a sign by its code

Questions

Is it wrong to say hieroglyphic instead of hieroglyph?

Dictionaries list hieroglyphic as a noun too, so it is not an error. Egyptologists and museums, the safer models for an essay or a caption, use hieroglyph for a sign and hieroglyphic as the adjective.

Did the Egyptians call them hieroglyphs?

No. The word is Greek. Their own name was mdw nṯr, "the god's words".

Is demotic a different language from hieroglyphs?

Demotic is first a script. The word also names the stage of the Egyptian language written in it, from the Late Period to Roman times. Hieroglyphs could write any stage of Egyptian.

What is the difference between hieratic and hieroglyphs?

Hieroglyphs are full pictures, mostly carved or painted on monuments. Hieratic is the same system written fast in ink, with signs simplified until the pictures are often hard to see.

Glossary

amulet: A small charm worn by the living or wrapped with a mummy for protection, often shaped like a sign such as the ankh or the scarab.
ankh: The sign of life, ꜥnḫ, a cross with a loop on top. Gods hold it out to kings in temple scenes.
cartouche: An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
demotic: A fast joined-up script that grew out of hieratic around 650 BC, used for everyday documents. It is the middle script on the Rosetta Stone.
Egyptologist: A scholar who studies ancient Egypt: its language, writing, objects, buildings and history.
Gardiner code: A label for a hieroglyph from the sign list in Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar of 1927, such as A1 for the seated man. The signs are grouped by what they show.
hieratic: A quick, rounded script made from hieroglyphs and written with a reed brush on papyrus. Scribes used it for letters, accounts and stories.
hieroglyphs: The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
papyrus: A writing sheet made from strips of the papyrus reed laid in two crossing layers and pressed. Sheets were glued into long rolls.
priest: A servant of a god in a temple, who washed, dressed and fed the god's statue each day. A high priest led the staff of a great temple.
Rosetta Stone: A stone slab of 196 BC carrying one decree in hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek. It helped Jean-François Champollion decipher hieroglyphs in 1822.
temple: The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.

Where to see it

Rosetta Stone object