different between homespun vs demotic

English

Etymology

From home +? spun.

Adjective

homespun (not comparable)

1. (of yarn) Spun in the home.
2. (of fabric) Woven in the home.
3. (of clothing, etc.) Made from homespun fabric.
   • 1855–1859, Washington Irving, The Life of George Washington

     homespun country garbs
4. (by extension) Plain and homely; unsophisticated and unpretentious.

   Synonyms: down-home, cracker-barrel

   • our homespun English proverb

   • 1707, Joseph Addison, Prologue to Phaedra and Hippolitus (spoken by Mr. Wilkes, written by Edmund Smith)

     our homespun authors must forsake the field

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:homespun.

Translations

Noun

homespun (countable and uncountable, plural homespuns)

1. Fabric made from homespun yarn. Also, machine made fabrics (usually cottons) similar to homespun fabrics in that solids, plaids, or stripes are created by weaving dyed threads (rather than printing), so that both sides of the fabric look the same.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:homespun.
2. (obsolete) An unpolished, rustic person.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:homespun.

See also

• down-home
• homegrown
• roughspun

English

Etymology

First attested in 1822, from Ancient Greek ????????? (d?motikós, “common”), from ??????? (d?mót?s, “commoner”), from ????? (dêmos, “the common people”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d?.?m?.t?k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /d?.m?.t?k/

Adjective

demotic (not comparable)

1. Of or for the common people.

   Synonyms: colloquial, informal, popular, vernacular

   Antonym: formal
2. Of, relating to, or written in the ancient Egyptian script that developed from Lower Egyptian hieratic writing starting from around 650 B.C.E. 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.

Derived terms

• demoticist

Related terms

• Demotic Greek
• demotist

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.

Translations

Further reading

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