Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act or practice of foretelling the future by drawing lots.
- noun Sorcery; witchcraft.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act, practice, or art of drawing lots; interpretation, divination, or decision by lot; hence, loosely, sorcery; magic.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act or practice of drawing lots; divination by drawing lots.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Witchcraft ,magic , especially as a means of making decisions or predictions.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The same would seem to apply to the law concerning duels, save that it approaches nearer to the common kind of sortilege, since no miraculous effect is expected thereupon, unless the combatants be very unequal in strength or skill.
Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas
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She might have tossed up, having coins in her pocket, _heads or tails_? but this kind of sortilege was then coming to be thought irreligious in Christendom, as a Jewish and a
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers Thomas De Quincey 1822
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She might have tossed up, having coins in her pocket, _heads or tails_? but this kind of sortilege was then coming to be thought irreligious in Christendom, as a Jewish and a
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1 Thomas De Quincey 1822
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I discovered this art that is his and his alone, to return tirelessly to the same stations of a life whose magic spells he interminably examines, in order to break the sortilege.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Jorge Semprun Bernard-Henri Lévy 2011
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I discovered this art that is his and his alone, to return tirelessly to the same stations of a life whose magic spells he interminably examines, in order to break the sortilege.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Jorge Semprun Bernard-Henri Lévy 2011
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I discovered this art that is his and his alone, to return tirelessly to the same stations of a life whose magic spells he interminably examines, in order to break the sortilege.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Jorge Semprun Bernard-Henri Lévy 2011
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I discovered this art that is his and his alone, to return tirelessly to the same stations of a life whose magic spells he interminably examines, in order to break the sortilege.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Jorge Semprun Bernard-Henri Lévy 2011
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I discovered this art that is his and his alone, to return tirelessly to the same stations of a life whose magic spells he interminably examines, in order to break the sortilege.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Jorge Semprun Bernard-Henri Lévy 2011
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I discovered this art that is his and his alone, to return tirelessly to the same stations of a life whose magic spells he interminably examines, in order to break the sortilege.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: A Tribute to Jorge Semprun Bernard-Henri Lévy 2011
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My father, more of a fantasist, described their meeting as a sortilege.
Havana Salsa Viviana Carballo 2006
yarb commented on the word sortilege
It was with a sort of apprehension that Renouard looked forward to seeing Miss Moorsom. And strangely enough it resembled the state of mind of a man who fears disenchantment more than sortilege.
- Conrad, The Planter of Malata
March 5, 2009
qms commented on the word sortilege
From birth to grave we must compete
So who dare call it fraud or cheat
If, to gain a mortal edge,
Some resort to sortilege?
For life's a race we can't repeat.
September 4, 2014