Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Divination by inspecting the entrails of a human being.

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

  • noun Divination by the entrails of human being.

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

  • noun divination by the interpretation of human sacrificial entrails.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος (anthropos, "man, mankind, human, humanity") + μαντεία (manteia, "divination").

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Examples

  • By anthropomancy, practised by the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus.

    Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518

  • He was killed in the war, and never returned to Carra, but when, in the reign of Jovian, the seal was broken and the temple opened, a body was found hanging by its hair -- I will spare you the particulars; it was a case of that most awful form of sorcery -- _anthropomancy_! "

    Brood of the Witch-Queen Sax Rohmer 1921

Comments

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  • Magic with people? Magic by people? Magic for people? Wait -- magic made from people?

    December 25, 2007

  • Divination using human entrails.

    May 13, 2008