English

Adjective

demotic ‎(not comparable)

1. Of or for the common people.
   • 2014 March 1, Rupert Christiansen, “English translations rarely sing”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), page R19:

     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.

2. Of, relating to, or written in the vulgar form of ancient Egyptian hieratic writing.

   demotic script is a simplified, cursive form of hieroglyphs used in ancient Egypt.

3. Of, relating to, or written in the form of modern vernacular Greek.

   demotic Greek

Synonyms

• (of the vulgar form of hieratic writing): enchorial

Translations

Noun

demotic ‎(plural demotics)

1. (linguistics) Language as spoken or written by the common people.
   • 2010, John C. Wells, accents map

     Note the intrusion into British demotic (“me and Cheryl were having”) of the valley-girl quotative be, like.

Derived terms

• demotist

Translations