Gyromancies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Practices or methods of divination involving spinning in circles or rotary motions to gain insight or predict the future
2. Techniques of fortune-telling using circular or revolving movements to access hidden knowledge or foresee events
3. Forms of scrying or prophecy that rely on whirling or rotating actions to interpret omens or divine outcomes

Etymology: "Gyromancies" is the plural of "gyromancy," a noun for divination by means of spinning or whirling. The word is built from two Greek-derived elements: "gyro-," from Greek "gyros," meaning "circle" or "turning," and "-mancy," from Greek "manteia," meaning "divination" or "prophecy." Other words in the same family follow the same pattern, such as "necromancy" (divination through the dead) and "cartomancy" (divination with cards). Because "-mancy" is an ordinary productive suffix in English, coinages like this one usually date from the scholarly or occult writing of the 18th and 19th centuries, when writers cheerfully combined classical elements to name newly described practices. Ancient Greeks would have understood the parts of the word but not the compound itself. The plural form simply means several distinct practices of this kind.

Synonyms: divination, fortune telling, clairvoyance