Dictionary

extispicy en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɛkˈstɪspɪsi/

Etymology

From Latin extispicium, from extispex (“diviner of entrails”) + -ium (forming abstract nouns).

Meanings

1. (uncountable) Synonym of haruspicy: the study and divination by use of animal entrails, usually the victims of sacrifice.
   • They became experts in what is called extispicy, or the readings of organs of sacrificed animals. 2007, Michael O'Neal, J. Sydney Jones, Neil Schlager, Jayne Weisblatt, World religions, volume 1, part 1, page 53:
   • ... to avoid wasting the enormous amounts of carcasses that in Mari, as elsewhere in Mesopotamia, were the products of the frequent killing of animals, almost exclusively sheep, for extispicy and omen taking. 2004, Cristiano Grottanelli, Lucio Milano, Food and Identity in the Ancient World:
2. (countable) A specific instance of such divination.
   • This image has been interpreted as the performance of “an extispicy on an animal whose flesh the king will later eat." 2010, Ada Cohen, Steven E. Kangas, Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography:

Forms

Synonyms

haruspicy