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augury - 4 dictionary results

au⋅gu⋅ry

  [aw-gyuh-ree]
Use augury in a Sentence
–noun, plural -ries.
1. the art or practice of an augur; divination.
2. the rite or ceremony of an augur.
3. an omen, token, or indication.
Origin:
1325–75; ME < L augurium soothsaying, equiv. to augur augur + -ium -ium

Related forms:
au⋅gu⋅ral, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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au·gu·ry   (ô'gyə-rē)   
n.   pl. au·gu·ries
  1. The art, ability, or practice of auguring; divination.
  2. A sign of something coming; an omen: "The chartist buys when the auguries look favorable and sells on bad omens" (Burton G. Malkiel).

[Middle English augurie, from Old French, from Latin augurium, from augur, augur; see augur.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Augury

Au"gu*ry\, n.; pl. Auguries. [L. aucurium.]

1. The art or practice of foretelling events by observing the actions of birds, etc.; divination.

2. An omen; prediction; prognostication; indication of the future; presage.

From their flight strange auguries she drew. --Drayton.

He resigned himself . . . with a docility that gave little augury of his future greatness. --Prescott.

3. A rite, ceremony, or observation of an augur.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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augury

prophetic divining of the future by observation of natural phenomena-particularly the behaviour of birds and animals and the examination of their entrails and other parts, but also by scrutiny of man-made objects and situations. The term derives from the official Roman augurs, whose constitutional function was not to foretell the future but to discover whether or not the gods approved of a proposed course of action, especially political or military. Two types of divinatory sign, or omen, were recognized: the most important was that deliberately watched for, such as lightning, thunder, flights and cries of birds, or the pecking behaviour of sacred chickens; of less moment was that which occurred casually, such as the unexpected appearance of animals sacred to the gods-the bear (Artemis), wolf (Apollo), eagle (Zeus), serpent (Asclepius), and owl (Minerva), for instance-or such other mundane signs as the accidental spilling of salt, sneezing, stumbling, or the creaking of furniture.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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