From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Hieroglyphic \Hi`er*o*glyph"ic\, Hieroglyphical
\Hi`er*o*glyph"ic*al\, a. [L. hieroglyphicus, Gr. ?; "iero`s
sacred + gly`fein to carve: cf. F. hi['e]roglyphique.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Emblematic; expressive of some meaning by characters,
pictures, or figures; as, hieroglyphic writing; a
hieroglyphic obelisk.
[1913 Webster]
Pages no better than blanks to common minds, to his,
hieroglyphical of wisest secrets. --Prof.
Wilson.
[1913 Webster]
2. Resembling hieroglyphics; not decipherable. "An
hieroglyphical scrawl." --Sir W. Scott.
[1913 Webster]
3. of or pertaining to hieroglyphs. [WordNet sense 1]
[WordNet 1.5]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Hieroglyph \Hi"er*o*glyph\, Hieroglyphic \Hi`er*o*glyph"ic\, n.
[Cf. F. hi['e]roglyphe. See {Hieroglyphic}, a.]
[1913 Webster]
1. A sacred character; a character used in picture writing,
as of the ancient Egyptians, Mexicans, etc. Specifically,
in the plural, the picture writing of the ancient Egyptian
priests. It is made up of three, or, as some say, four
classes of characters: first, the hieroglyphic proper, or
figurative, in which the representation of the object
conveys the idea of the object itself; second, the
ideographic, consisting of symbols representing ideas, not
sounds, as an ostrich feather is a symbol of truth; third,
the phonetic, consisting of symbols employed as syllables
of a word, or as letters of the alphabet, having a certain
sound, as a hawk represented the vowel a.
[1913 Webster]
2. Any character or figure which has, or is supposed to have,
a hidden or mysterious significance; hence, any
unintelligible or illegible character or mark. [Colloq.]
Hieroglyphic
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
hieroglyphic
adj 1: resembling hieroglyphic writing [syn: {hieroglyphic},
{hieroglyphical}]
2: written in or belonging to a writing system using pictorial
symbols [syn: {hieroglyphic}, {hieroglyphical}]
n 1: writing that resembles hieroglyphics (usually by being
illegible) [syn: {hieroglyph}, {hieroglyphic}]
2: a writing system using picture symbols; used in ancient Egypt
[syn: {hieroglyph}, {hieroglyphic}]
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