AUGURY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Augury

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Augury n. (pl. auguries)

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

An omen; prediction; prognostication; indication of the future; presage. "From their flight strange auguries she drew." "He resigned himself... with a docility that gave little augury of his future greatness."

A rite, ceremony, or observation of an augur.

See images of 'Augury'

Etymology of 'Augury'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Augury" Quotes from Famous Books

... stage showed us a wholly dissimilar condition, yet not without its ideal side. We were brought face to face with that transitional phase of society and pacific revolution, of happiest augury for the future. From the peasant ranks are now recruited contingents that will make civil wars impossible, men who carry into politics learning and the arts, those solid qualities that have made rural ...

— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... note of the days on which people are born. If one observe the movements and cries of birds or of any animals, or the sneezing of men, or the sudden movements of limbs, this belongs in general to "augury," which is so called from the chattering of birds (avium garritu), just as "auspice" is derived from watching birds (avium inspectione). These are chiefly wont to be observed in birds, the former by the ear, the latter by the eye. If, however, these observations have for their object men's ...

— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... augury from the circumstance that Mrs. Denham did not come down to greet them. It dawned upon him then for the first time with any distinctness that Ruth might be fatally ill. Mr. Denham, accompanied by Dr. Pendegrast, hastened to his wife's apartments, and Lynde ...

— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... his hump lightly for luck in passing, as every Italian woman will to this day if she finds herself close to a hunchback in the street, and this act is rarely resented. Pina thought it a piece of unexampled good-fortune and of the best possible augury that the door should have been opened by a 'bringer-of-fortune,' and the deformed servant smiled gently at her touch, quite understanding. As he led the way in, after shutting the outer door, Pina saw that ...

— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... Moltke, chief of the General Staff, was the practical director of military operations. General von Moltke was a nephew of the great strategist of 1870, and his name possibly appealed as of happy augury for repeating ...

— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

More quotes...