Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or characteristic of a prophet; oracular.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of, pertaining to, or proceeding from a prophet or seer; prophetic; oracular; inspired.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pertaining to a prophet; prophetic, oracular.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective resembling or characteristic of a prophet or prophecy

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin vātēs, seer, of Celtic origin; see wet- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin vates ‘seer, poet’.

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Examples

  • I'm very fond of the Fourth World series, and even enjoy the aspect of them that is most often mocked, Kirby's peculiar writing style, which to my ears at least has a kind of vatic poetry.

    Comics Comics Jeet Heer 2010

  • The springy elegance of his mind, which serves to clarify the problems of life, not to muddle them with vatic obscurities, has brought him triple glory—as a poet, a translator no one has captured Molière in English better than he and a lyricist.

    A Great Living Poet's Rare Art of Reticence Richard B. Woodward 2011

  • Sent down through his vatic brotherhood the Christ that was to be.

    City and Village 2010

  • Rolling from the personal to the historical, the vatic to the domestic, this is not an easy play to bring off.

    After the Dance; Love Story; Joe Turner's Come and Gone 2010

  • Non-vatic though I am, that looks like a good omen to me.

    What’s the News from Basra? 2008

  • The contemporary poet has largely eschewed any claim to the “vatic,” a mantle many poets a generation or three ago aspired to.

    2007 November : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation - Part 2 2007

  • Now, in her vatic vision of the world as a Jew, she wants to see women healed and changed with the restoration of the goddess in her many forms.

    Alicia Suskin Ostriker. 2009

  • The contemporary poet has largely eschewed any claim to the “vatic,” a mantle many poets a generation or three ago aspired to.

    Poetry and Prophecy : A.E. Stallings : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007

  • To others, he is an impene-trable, loquacious charlatan, a mystificateur pouring forth vatic, rapturous tautologies.

    Archive 2008-07-01 enowning 2008

  • To others, he is an impene-trable, loquacious charlatan, a mystificateur pouring forth vatic, rapturous tautologies.

    enowning enowning 2008

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