Other forms: hieroglyphs
A hieroglyph is one of the picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing. Carved hieroglyphs, read the hieroglyphs, a row of hieroglyphs.
They are not picture-writing in the simple sense: most stand for sounds, some for whole words, and some tell you which kind of word the one before was. The Rosetta Stone made them readable because it repeats the same text in Greek.
1nounhieroglyphOne of the picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing.
“The walls of the tomb were covered in painted hieroglyphs.”
hieroglyph is a written sign.
Greek hieroglyphika means sacred carvings — hieros, sacred, plus glyphein, to carve. The Greeks found them on temples.
Proto-Indo-European
*glewbʰ-
egy
mdw-nṯr — the god’s word
Ancient Greek
ἱερογλυφικός
Latin
hieroglyphicus
Middle French
hiéroglyphique
English, today
hieroglyph
Built from
First attested around 1598, a back-formation from hieroglyphic (1580s), from Middle French hiéroglyphique, from Latin hieroglyphicus, from Ancient Greek ἱερογλυφικός (Plutarch τά ἱερογλυφικά [γράμματα] "hieroglyphic [writing]), ἱερόγλυφος (“carver of hieroglyphs”) (Ptolemy), a compound of ἱερός (“sacred, holy”) and γλυφή (“carved work”), a calque of egy mdw-nṯr (“the god’s word”), nTr-md. by surface analysis, hiero- + glyph.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA