Coptic

[kop-tik]

noun

an Afroasiatic language of Egypt descended from ancient Egyptian, largely extinct as a spoken language since the 16th century but surviving as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church.

adjective

of or relating to Coptic or the Copts.

Origin of Coptic

First recorded in 1670–80; Copt + -ic

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for coptic

Contemporary Examples of coptic

The fragment is written in Coptic, not Greek, and is not actually from the Bible, as the title would indicate.
Dismembering History: The Shady Online Trade in Ancient Texts
Candida Moss
November 23, 2014
He tentatively suggested that the text is a pastiche compiled by a modern forger with an elementary grasp of Coptic.
The ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ is Still as Big a Mystery as Ever
Candida Moss
April 13, 2014
Pharaonic scenes, Muslim symbols, poetry, and Coptic icons—great vivid murals bloomed onto the walls.
Ahdaf Soueif’s Cairo: Remembering A City Wracked By The Arab Spring
Ahdaf Soueif
January 26, 2014
I met him at the Coptic Hospital when I went to visit the Maspero injured.
Ahdaf Soueif’s Cairo: Remembering A City Wracked By The Arab Spring
Ahdaf Soueif
January 26, 2014
And Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri accused Coptic Pope Tawadros II of wanting to establish a Coptic state in Egypt.
The Holy Land’s Endangered Christians
Jamie Dettmer
January 12, 2014

Historical Examples of coptic

A Hollander, might just as well have chanted modern Greek, or Coptic.
Arthur O'Leary
Charles James Lever
Among other interesting places they visited was a Coptic church.
Great African Travellers
W.H.G. Kingston
It was used, for example, by the early Coptic Christians to supplement tapestry.
Art in Needlework
Lewis F. Day
His translations from the Armenian, Georgian and Coptic were numerous.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 17, Slice 4
Various
Those Coptic dogs, those eaters of carrion, have fled in the night.
Tales of Secret Egypt
Sax Rohmer

British Dictionary definitions for coptic

Coptic

noun

an Afro-Asiatic language, written in the Greek alphabet but descended from ancient Egyptian. It was extinct as a spoken language by about 1600 ad but survives in the Coptic Church

adjective

of or relating to this language
of or relating to the Copts

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012