rhapsodomancy means divination by reading a random passage from a poem. It carries an Arena rating of 1708, earned across 32 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, rhapsodomancy ranks #66 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #138 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #178 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #303 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
Why “rhapsodomancy” is a great word
RHAPSODOMANCY — [Noun] Divination by interpreting a random passage selected from a poem. From French rhapsodomancie, from Ancient Greek ῥαψῳδός (rhapsōidós, "reciter of epic poetry, rhapsodist") and the combining form -mancy ("divination"). First attested in English by 1738. Unlike bibliomancy (which draws from any book) or stichomancy (which selects a line from any text), rhapsodomancy courts the oracle specifically within verse. It is the blind finger descending upon Homer to find a course for tomorrow's voyage, the frantic flip of a battered sonnet during a sleepless night, the sudden, jarring relevance of a forgotten couplet to a present dread—a fragile hope that the chaos of life might, for a moment, rhyme.
Etymology
From French rhapsodomancie, from Ancient Greek ῥαψῳδός (rhapsōidós) + -mancy.
noun
- Divination by reading a random passage from a poem.e.g.“Rhapsodomantia sive divinatio ex rhapsodia aliqva poëtæ.” — 1723, Fabricii, Bibliographia Antiquaria xii:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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