scry

English

Alternative forms

• skry

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɹaɪ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪ

Etymology 1

From Middle English scrien, scryen, a shortened form of Middle English ascrien, from Old French escrier (“to cry out”). Influenced by Middle English descrien (“to descry”).

Verb

scry (third-person singular simple present scries, present participle scrying, simple past and past participle scried)

1. To predict the future using crystal balls or other objects.

   The fortune teller claimed she could scry [into] the future.

2. (obsolete) To descry; to see.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 352:

     […] two ſhepheards curres, had ſcryde
     A rauenous Wolfe amongſt the ſcattered flockes.

Derived terms

• scryer
• scrying

Translations

predict the future using crystal balls or other objects

• Bulgarian: гадая с кристал (gadaja s kristal)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: katsoa kristallipallosta
• Portuguese: prever (pt), antever (pt), futurar (pt)
• Spanish: agorar (es), augurar (es), vaticinar (es)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Japanese: ^{(please verify)} 占術 (せんじゅつ, senjutsu)
• Portuguese: ^{(please verify)} ver (pt), anunciar (pt), proclamar (pt)

Etymology 2

From Middle English ascry, ascrie, escrie, from Anglo-Norman ascri, from Old French escri.

Noun

scry (plural scries)

1. (obsolete) A cry or shout.
2. A flock of wildfowl.

Verb

scry (third-person singular simple present scries, present participle scrying, simple past and past participle scried)

1. (obsolete) To proclaim.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “scry”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Cyrs