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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

zoomancy en · NOUN

Etymology

From zoo- + -mancy.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) divination by means of animals
    • Yet why should so many generations have believed in divination by birds, and even in zoomancy, said by Suidas to have been imparted by Orpheus, who taught how to perceive in the yoke and white of the egg, under certain conditions, that which the bird born from it would have seen around it during its short life. 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, The Theosophical Publishing Company, Limited (1888), pages 362-363
    • The speech takes the form of a zoomancy, with no act of zoomancy in evidence. 1994, Michael David Cooperson, The Heirs of the Prophets in Classical Arabic Biography, page 207:
    • […] these are mainly writings of a technical nature: scribes' registers on ritual divination by turtle and milfoil, calendars, manuals of hemerology, astrology, meteoromancy and Yijing divination, treatises on medicine, macrobiotics, and zoomancy. 2004, Marc Kalinowski, “Technical Traditions in Ancient China and Shushu Culture in Chinese Religion”, in John Lagerwey, editor, Religion and Chinese Society, Chinese University Press, published 2006, →ISBN, page 224: