myomancyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

名詞

myomancy (uncountable)

1. Divination by interpreting rats or mice. Their cries were believed to indicate the presence of evil.
   • 1855 Elihu Rich in Smedley et al. Occult Sci.

     Myomancy was a method of divination by rats and mice, and is supposed to be alluded to in Isaiah lxvi. 17. Their peculiar cries, or some marked devastation committed by them, was taken for a prognostic of evil.

   • 1865, Samuel Lysons, Our British Ancestors: Who and what Were They?:

     Pliny has a chapter on myomancy, or soothsaying by means of rats and mince, (Nat. Hist., lib. ix. c. 57).