Definition of "demotic" in English

adjective

1. Of or for the common people.

   • demotic writing style

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.

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

   • demotic Greek

noun

1. (linguistics) Language as spoken or written by the common people.

   • Near-synonym: vernacular
   • 2010, John C. Wells, accents map Note the intrusion into British demotic (“me and Cheryl were having”) of the valley-girl quotative be, like.