• Hydromancy

    Origin

    From French hydromancie or Late Latin hydromantia, from Ancient Greek *ὑδρομαντεία; corresponding to - + mancy + -.

    Full definition of hydromancy

    Noun

    hydromancy

    (uncountable)
    1. Divination by water or other liquid.
      • 1797, Encyclopædia Britannica, 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, 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.

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