hydromancy
English
Alternative forms
- ydromancy
- hydromancie
- hydromantie
- hydromanty
Etymology
From French hydromancie or Late Latin hydromantia, from 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.
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Derived terms
- hydromancer
- hydromantic
Related terms
- hydatoscopy
Translations
divination by water or other liquid
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