Meaning of coscinomancy | Babel Free

Definitions

Divination by the use of a suspended sieve sometimes from tongs or shears. The movement of the sieve when a person's name or word is spoken is interpreted.

uncountable

Examples

“1603 Christopher Heydon A Defence of Ivdiciall Astrolgie And as for Hydromancie, and Choschinomancie, they could vanish as superfluous, as were evident and ridiculous even to the ignorant.”

“1660 Urquhart tr. Rabelais Gargantua & Pantagruel iii. xxv. By Coscinomancy, most religiously observed of old, amidst the Ceremonies of the ancient Romans. Let us have a Sieve and Shiers, and thou shalt see Devils.”

“1913 Halliday Greek Div. x. To the same species of divinatory rites [i.e. those involving a swinging pendulum] belong the koskinomancy of Theokritos, familiar in England as the consultation of the sieve and shears, and the minor rites of axinomancy and sphondylomancy.”

CEFR level