hieroglyphic: [16] Etymologically, hieroglyphic means ‘of sacred carving’. It came via French hiéroglyphique from Greek hierogluphikós, a compound of hierós ‘sacred’ and gluphé ‘carving’ (which derived from the same source as English cleave ‘split’). It was applied to the picture writing of the ancient Egyptians because this was used in sacred texts. => cleave[hieroglyphic etymology, hieroglyphic origin, 英语词源]