demotic

See also: Demotic

English

Etymology

First attested in 1822, from Ancient Greek δημοτικός (dēmotikós, “common”), from δημότης (dēmótēs, “commoner”), from δῆμος (dêmos, “the common people”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈmɒt.ɪk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /dɪˈmɑ.tɪk/

Adjective

demotic (not comparable)

1. Of or for the common people.

   Synonyms: colloquial, informal, popular, vernacular

   Antonym: formal

   Coordinate term: democratic

   demotic writing style

   • 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.

   • 2016 October 31, Robert McCrum, “The 100 best nonfiction books: No 40 – The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     An enthusiastic literary critical response ranged from Graham Greene, who admired Byron’s demotic, conversational brilliance, to the rivalrous Evelyn Waugh, who had to concede the book’s high spirits, via the Sunday Times, which linked Byron to his namesake (no relation) and declared him “the last and finest fruit of the insolent humanism of the 18th century”.

   • 2026 June 15, Michelle Goldberg, “The UFC 250 Was a Garish Spectacle of American Decline”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     The conservative writer Marc Thiessen tried to depict Trump’s lurid festival as a sign of his demotic spirit, opening the White House to the sort of people who go to motocross rallies and monster truck shows.

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.

   Synonym: enchorial

   Coordinate term: abnormal hieratic

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

   demotic Greek

Derived terms

• demotically
• demoticism
• demoticist

Related terms

• Demotic Greek
• demotist

Translations

of or for the common people

• Arabic: شَعْبِيّ (šaʕbiyy), دَارِج (dārij)
• Bulgarian: на простолюдието (na prostoljudieto)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: kansanomainen (fi), demoottinen, rahvaanomainen (fi)
• Greek: κοινός (el) m (koinós)
• Hungarian: népi (hu), népies (hu)
• Irish: coiteann
• Polish: demotyczny (pl)
• Romanian: demotic
• Russian: наро́дный (ru) (naródnyj), простонаро́дный (ru) (prostonaródnyj)
• Swedish: demotisk (sv)

of the cursive ancient Egyptian script

• Catalan: demòtic
• Czech: démotický (cs)
• Finnish: demoottinen
• French: démotique (fr)
• German: demotisch (de)
• Irish: coiteann
• Polish: demotyczny (pl)
• Russian: демоти́ческий (ru) (demotíčeskij)
• Spanish: demótico
• Swedish: demotisk (sv)

of modern vernacular Greek

• Finnish: demootinen
• French: démotique (fr)
• Greek: δημοτικός (el) (dimotikós), δημώδης (el) (dimódis)
• Irish: coiteann
• Polish: demotyczny (pl)
• Russian: димоти́ческий (dimotíčeskij)
• Spanish: demótico

Noun

demotic (countable and uncountable, plural demotics)

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.

Translations

language of the common people

• German: Umgangssprache (de) f
• Polish: demotyka f

Further reading

• demotic on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “demotic”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French démotique.

Adjective

demotic m or n (feminine singular demotică, masculine plural demotici, feminine/neuter plural demotice)

1. demotic

Declension

Declension of demotic

		singular			plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine	masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative- accusative	indefinite	demotic		demotică	demotici	demotice
	definite	demoticul		demotica	demoticii	demoticele
genitive- dative	indefinite	demotic		demotice	demotici	demotice
	definite	demoticului		demoticei	demoticilor	demoticelor