Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A species of divination performed by burning straws, etc., upon red-hot iron, and observing their bendings, figures, sparkling, and burning.

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

  • noun Divination by burning straws on red-hot iron, and noting the manner of their burning.

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

  • noun divination by studying the burning of straws on heated iron

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek iron + -mancy.

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Examples

  • 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

Comments

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  • divination by the stars

    July 13, 2008

  • Stars, or straws?

    August 9, 2010

  • The Latin sidus, sider- is "star", but the Greek sidêr- is "iron". The genuinely Greek-derived word for divination by the stars would be 'astromancy'.

    August 9, 2010