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)

1. Divination by water or other liquid.
   • 1797, Encyclopædia Britannica, 3rd 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.

   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 39:

     Hydromancy was extensively practised by the Egyptian priests and sorcerers[.]

   • 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.

Derived terms

• hydromancer
• hydromantic

Related terms

• hydatoscopy

Translations

divination by water or other liquid

• Finnish: hydromantia
• French: hydromancie (fr) f

  Middle French: hydromancie f

  Old French: hydromancie f

• Italian: idromanzia f
• Latin: hydromantīa (New Latin, Late Latin)
• Middle English: hidromancy, idromance, idromancie, ydromance, ydromaunce