different between workaday vs demotic

English

Alternative forms

• workyday (obsolete)

Etymology

Circa 1200, Middle English werkedei, from Old Norse virkr dagr (“working day”). Cognate to later workday; see work and day. Used in adjective sense from 16th century. Note that the surface analysis work +? a +? day is cognate, but not the correct etymology – a much older formation.

Adjective

workaday (comparative more workaday, superlative most workaday)

1. Suitable for everyday use.
2. Mundane or commonplace.

Quotations

• 1916, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, Macmillan Press Ltd, paperback, p. 102:

  A retreat, my dear boys, signifies a withdrawal for a while from the cares of our life, the cares of this workaday world, in order to examine the state of our conscience, to reflect on the mysteries of holy religion and to understand better why we are here in this world."

Related terms

• workday

Translations

References

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.