Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Divination by means of a wand or rod, especially for discovering underground water or ores.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Divination by a rod or wand; specifically, the attempt to discover things concealed in the earth, as ores, metals, or springs of water, by a divining-rod; bletonism; dousing.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Same as
rabdomancy .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Divination with a wand or rod;dowsing .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun searching for underground water or minerals by using a dowsing rod
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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98 We have not heard the last of this old “dowsing rod”: the latest form of rhabdomancy is an electrical-rod invented in the United
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If it does, revoke, O student, your shrill _eheu_ for the Greekless and untrousered savage of the canoe, suppress your feelings, and go steadily into rhabdomancy with several divining-rods, in search of the Pierian spring which must surely exist somewhere among the guttural districts of the Ojibbeway tongue.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 40, February, 1861 Various
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This deceptio visus, or product of rhabdomancy, easily effected by an adept of the
The Valley of Decision Edith Wharton 1899
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But our village friend, though perhaps constructively right in his philosophizing, was certainly very defective in his acquaintance with the time-honoured art of rhabdomancy.
Myths and Myth-makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology 1872
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I refer to such organic forces as are popularly summed up under the words clairvoyance, mesmerism, rhabdomancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism.
The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America Daniel Garrison Brinton 1868
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[FN#98] We have not heard the last of this old "dowsing rod": the latest form of rhabdomancy is an electrical-rod invented in the
Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855
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Agreeably to the doctrines of rhabdomancy, formerly in vogue, and at the present moment not entirely discarded, a twig, usually of witchhazle, borne over the surface of the ground, indicates the presence of water to which it is instinctively alive, by stirring in the hand.
Margaret 1851
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It is not water, but treasures which they profess to find by some hidden kind of rhabdomancy.
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers Thomas De Quincey 1822
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It is not water, but treasures which they profess to find by some hidden kind of rhabdomancy.
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 2 Thomas De Quincey 1822
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Rhabdomantic: "related to rhabdomancy" ( "divination by means of a rod or wand; spec. a technique for searching for underground water, minerals, etc.; dowsing").
Orange Crate Art 2010
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