Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act or practice of prognosticating by the inspection of the entrails of animals slain in sacrifice; divination.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See haruspicy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun divination, fortune-telling, by reading the entrails of animals (a practice of Ancient Rome).

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Romans had their Sybilline books and their Etruscan custom of haruspication (divination from entrails).

    CHANCE MAURICE KENDALL 1968

  • Other sets of synonyms include, in addition to the aforementioned haruspicy and haruspication: caloptromancy and enoptromancy; spodomancy and tephramancy (or tephromancy); alectryomancy and alectoromancy; astromancy and sideromancy; crystallomancy and gastromancy; hieromancy and hieroscopy; necromancy and sciomancy; ornithomancy and orniscopy; and scapulimancy and omoplatoscopy.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol VI No 2 1979

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