scry

English

Alternative forms

• skry

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɹaɪ/

• Audio (UK)

  (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, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book 5, canto 12:

     two Shepherds Curs had scry'd
     A ravenous Wolfe amongst the scatter'd Flocks.

Translations

predict the future using crystal balls or other objects

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

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

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Japanese: 占術 (せんじゅつ, senjutsu)

• Portuguese: ver (pt), anunciar (pt), proclamar (pt)

Derived terms

• scryer

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

• Cyrs