auspicium

From auspex (“augur, priest”) +‎ -ium.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [au̯sˈpɪ.ki.ũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [au̯sˈpiː.t͡ʃi.um]

auspicium n (genitive auspiciī or auspicī); second declension

1. divination, augury (by watching birds)
2. auspices
3. (transferred) (plural) power, authority
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.102-103:

     “Commūnem hunc ergō populum paribusque regāmus / auspiciīs [...].”

     “Therefore let us rule this nation jointly and with equal authority.”
     (Understood literally, Juno is proposing that she and Venus will jointly control the divine auspices interpreted at Carthage.)

4. sign, indication

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

• “auspicium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “auspicium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• auspicium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “auspicium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “auspicium”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin