haruspex

plural haruspices · alternative aruspex · alternative haruspice

1. A soothsayer or priest in Ancient Rome (originally Etruscan) who practiced haruspicy, divination by inspecting entrails.

   All of this is nonsense, but so are all attempts to look at a few successes and a few failures and make fatuous generalizations based on coincidence. Etruscan and Roman haruspices did the same thing with the entrails of chickens.

   2013, Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

   1 more example

   If it be lawfull for Panæcius to maintaine his judgement about Aruspices, Dreames, Oracles and Prophecies[…]: Wherfore shall not a wise-man dare that in all things, which this man dareth in such as he hath learned of his Masters?

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC