Hydromancy
Alternative forms
Origin
From French hydromancie or Late Latin hydromantia, from Ancient Greek *ὑδÏομαντεία; corresponding to - + mancy + -.
Full definition of hydromancy
Noun
hydromancy
(uncountable)- 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.