Why this word is great
SPAEWIFE — [Noun] A female fortune-teller or prophetess, rooted in Scottish folk tradition. Borrowed from Scots spaewife, from spae ("to foretell, prophesy") of Old Norse origin (spá) + wife ("woman"). Unlike a "seer," which implies a lofty, visionary gift, or a "fortune-teller," a broad and commercialized term, the spaewife is an artisan of augury, her knowledge woven into the local vernacular. She reads omens in the entrails of a hare, the pattern of thrown stones, and the way peat-smoke clings to a low ceiling—her prophecy is not of empires, but a shrewd interpretation of the small, impending weather of lives, a keeper of whispers from the world's ordinary corners.