extispicy

extispicy

English

Etymology

From Latin extispicium.

Noun

extispicy (plural extispicies)

1. (uncountable) Haruspicy: the study and divination by use of animal entrails, usually the victims of sacrifice.
   • 2007, Michael O'Neal, J. Sydney Jones, Neil Schlager, Jayne Weisblatt, World religions, volume 1, part 1, page 53

     They became experts in what is called extispicy, or the readings of organs of sacrificed animals.

   • 2004, Cristiano Grottanelli, Lucio Milano, Food and Identity in the Ancient World

     ... to avoid wasting the enormous amounts of carcasses that in Mari, as elsewhere in Mesopotamia, were the products of the frequent killing of animals, almost exclusively sheep, for extispicy and omen taking.

2. (countable) A specific instance of such divination.
   • 2010, Ada Cohen, Steven E. Kangas, Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography

     This image has been interpreted as the performance of “an extispicy on an animal whose flesh the king will later eat."