hydromancy
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] French hydromancie or Late (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin hydromantia, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Ancient Greek *ὑδρομαντεία (*hudromanteía); corresponding to hydro- + -mancy.
Noun
hydromancy (usually uncountable, plural hydromancies)
- Divination by water or other liquid.
- 1797, Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 edition:
- Hydromancy is the supposed art of divining by water. The Persians, according to Varro, invented it; Pythagoras and Numa Pompilius made use of it; and we still admire the like wonderful prognosticators.
- 1985, Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi, →ISBN:
- Hydromancy, like many other methods of divination, seems to have originated in Babylonia and reached the Greco-Roman world via Egypt, in the first century b.c. or earlier.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
divination by water or other liquid
|