​DEMOTIC (Gr. δημοτικός, of or belonging to the people), a term, meaning popular, specially applied to that cursive script of the ancient Egyptian language used for business and literary purposes,—for the people. It is opposed to “hieratic” (Gr. ἱερατικός, of or belonging to the priests), the script, an abridged form of the hieroglyphic, used in transcribing the religious texts. (See Writing, and Egypt: II., Ancient, D. Language and Writing.)