Rhabdomantia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Divination performed by interpreting the movements or positions of a rod or wand, often to locate hidden things
2. A form of fortune-telling in which a wand or staff is read to reveal hidden knowledge or the location of buried objects
3. The practice of predicting events or finding concealed items by observing how a dowsing-style rod or stick behaves

Etymology: Rhabdomantia is the ancient practice of divining with rods, a method in which a diviner would hold a forked stick or wand and read its movements to locate hidden water, metal, or to answer questions. The term combines the Greek "rhabdos," meaning rod or staff, with "manteia," meaning divination or prophecy, from "mantis," a seer. The second element is the same one found in "necromancy" and "geomancy," which shows how many forms of Greek fortune-telling share a common suffix. Rhabdomancy is the more common English form, and it is attested from the 17th century, when the practice was discussed in works on natural magic and early scientific curiosity about water-finding. The Greek roots themselves are ancient, but the compound as an English term is a later scholarly formation drawn from those classical elements rather than a word used by the Greeks themselves.