haruspex

• aruspex, haruspice

Borrowed from Latin haruspex.

• IPA^(key): /həˈrʌspɛks/

haruspex (plural haruspices)

1. A soothsayer or priest in Ancient Rome (originally Etruscan) who practiced haruspicy, divination by inspecting entrails.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     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?

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

     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.

From Proto-Italic *haru-speks, from *speks.^[1] The first component may be related to hīra (“empty gut”); the second is from the root of speciō (“to observe, watch”).^[2] Compare Faliscan 𐌇𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌔𐌐(𐌄𐌗) (harisp(ex)). According to Nocentini^[3] the first part stems from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰerH- (“intestine”) (thus *ǵʰr̥H-u- > *xaru-), whence also Latin hariolus, hernia (“hernia”).

Cognate to Ancient Greek χορδή (khordḗ), Proto-Germanic *garnō (“intestines”) (whence German Garn) and to Lithuanian žarnà (“intestine”). The component -spex can also be found in the word auspex.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [haˈrʊs.pɛks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [aˈrus.peks]

haruspex m (genitive haruspicis); third declension

1. diviner who reads from the intestines of sacrificial animals; one who practices haruspicy.

Third-declension noun.

• augur, auspex

• “haruspex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “haruspex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• haruspex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “haruspex”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

Derived from Latin haruspex.

• IPA^(key): [ˈɦaruspeks]

haruspex m pers

1. haruspex

• “haruspex”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2025