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hydromancy: msg#00023culture.language.word-of-the-day
***************************************************************** Discover the people and events that made history ON THIS DAY. Sign up for the free daily newsletter from Britannica. http://register.britannica.com/mailinglist ***************************************************************** The Word of the Day for November 24 is: hydromancy \HY-druh-man-see\ noun : divination by the appearance or motion of liquids (as water) Example sentence: The store has a large section of books about hydromancy and other forms of fortune-telling. Did you know? If you've ever encountered a sorceress or a wizard peering into a "scrying bowl" as part of a movie or a book, you've witnessed a (fictionalized) version of "hydromancy." The word has been used since at least the 14th century to describe the use of water in divination -- examples include predicting the future by the motion of the tides or contacting spirits using still water. "Hydromancy" is believed to derive ultimately from the Greek words for "water" ("hydor") and "divination" ("manteia"); it came to English via the Latin "hydromantia." The ancient Greeks who relied on hydromancy also gave us the names for related forms of divination, such as "necromancy" (using the dead), "pyromancy" (with fire), and even "rhabdomancy," a fancy and now rare word for "divination with wands or rods." |
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