pegomancy en · NOUN
Etymology
Ancient Greek πηγή (pēgḗ, “fountain”) + -mancy.
Meanings
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(uncountable) divination by fountains
Needless to say, “midden,” if we are to translate, is the stuff through which one is trying to walk in that footless stocking while the editors of National Review are failing to bite the bullet and forsake all squalid pegomancy for pedomancy.
1975, Norman Mailer, letter to William F. Buckley Jr.This was the Pegomancy of the Greeks; who also solicited the answer of the Nymphs of the Spring, by offerings of bread, stones, or coins, or by dipping in a mirror, and construing the figures which the water had left on it.
1824, John Macculloch, The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland: