SOOTHSAYING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Soothsaying

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noun

Soothsaying n.

A true saying; truth. (Obs.)

The act of one who soothsays; the foretelling of events; the art or practice of making predictions. "A damsel, possessed with a spirit of divination... which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying."

A prediction; a prophecy; a prognostication. "Divinations and soothsayings and dreams are vain."

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Etymology of 'Soothsaying'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Soothsaying" Quotes from Famous Books

... went into swamps, and hidden among lofty lotus stems brought down with arrows wild birds, which circling in noisy flocks were as numerous as flies are. But even at those times ambitious thoughts did not desert him; so he turned the hunting into a kind of predicting or soothsaying. More than once, when he saw a flock of yellow geese upon the water, he drew his bow and said, "If I hit I shall be like Ramses ...

— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... think wrong; false religions, for instance, because false. But they are perplexed when told that there may be branches of real knowledge, yet forbidden. Yet it has ever been considered in the Church, as in Scripture, that soothsaying, consulting the stars, magic, and similar arts, are unlawful—unlawful, even though not false; and Scripture certainly speaks as if at least some of them were more than merely a pretended knowledge and a pretended power; whereas men now-a-days have got to think that they ...

— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... of Boreas pursued the Harpies) to the lands of the Massagetae and of the proud Half-Dog men, of the Underground-folk and of the feeble Pygmies; and to the tribes of the boundless Black-skins and the Libyans. Huge Earth bare these to Epaphus—soothsaying people, knowing seercraft by the will of Zeus the lord of oracles, but deceivers, to the end that men whose thought passes their utterance [1733] might be subject to the gods and suffer harm—Aethiopians and ...

— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... which the people were anxious to know. She replied that she could not give an opinion in this matter before the morrow, after that she had slept there through the night. And on the morrow, when the day was far spent, such preparations were made as were necessary to enable her to accomplish her soothsaying. She bade them bring her those women who knew the incantation which she required to work her spells, and which she called Warlocks; but such women were not to be found. Thereupon a search was made throughout the house, to see whether anyone knew this [incantation]. ...

— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang