hieroglyphical
English
Etymology
From hieroglyph + -ical.
Adjective
hieroglyphical (comparative more hieroglyphical, superlative most hieroglyphical)
- Related to or resembling hieroglyphs; hieroglyphic.
- 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Pause”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 141:
- [M]ay we not say that Teufeldröckh's Biography, allowing it even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as it were preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy?
- 1835, An Oxonian, Thaumaturgia[1]:
- Indisputable historical facts, recorded in this invaluable book, were treated by them as hieroglyphical symbols of chemical processes: and the fundamental truths of the christian religion were applied, in a wanton and blasphemous manner, to the purposes of making gold, and distilling the elixir of life.
- 1874, Charles Kingsley, All Saints’ Day and Other Sermons[2]:
- It is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and of the creatures of God.
- 1844, John Wilson (Scottish writer), The Genius, and Character of Burns:
- Pages no better than blanks to common minds, to his, hieroglyphical of wisest secrets.
- 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
- a hieroglyphical scrawl.'