Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Hieratic \Hi`er*at"ic\, a. [L. hieraticus, Gr. ?; akin to
   "iero`s sacred: cf. F. hi['e]ratique.]
   Consecrated to sacred uses; sacerdotal; pertaining to
   priests.

   {Hieratic character}, a mode of ancient Egyptian writing; a
      modified form of hieroglyphics, tending toward a cursive
      hand and formerly supposed to be the sacerdotal character,
      as the demotic was supposed to be that of the people.

            It was a false notion of the Greeks that of the
            three kinds of writing used by the Egyptians, two --
            for that reason called hieroglyphic and hieratic --
            were employed only for sacred, while the third, the
            demotic, was employed for secular, purposes. No such
            distinction is discoverable on the more ancient
            Egyptian monuments; bur we retain the old names
            founded on misapprehension.           --W. H. Ward
                                                  (Johnson's
                                                  Cyc.).