different between sortilege vs cleromancy

English

Etymology

From Old French sortilège, from Medieval Latin sortilegium (“witchcraft”), from Latin sortilegus (“sorcerer, diviner”), from sors (“fate”) + legere (“choose”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s??t?l?d??/

Noun

sortilege (countable and uncountable, plural sortileges)

1. Witchcraft, magic, especially as a means of making decisions or predictions.
   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:

     We have therefore summoned to our presence a Jewish woman, by name Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York — a woman infamous for sortileges and for witcheries.

   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, page 115:

     Orthodox believers […] were less happy about using sortilege to coerce God into taking decisions on their behalf.

   • 2001, JT Leroy, Sarah:

     ‘Too much evil sortilege,’ Glad always says when someone suggests he open a franchise over Cheat Ridge.

Derived terms

• sortilegious

Translations

Latin

Adjective

sortilege

1. vocative masculine singular of sortilegus

English

Etymology

Ancient Greek kleros, "a lot".

Noun

cleromancy (uncountable)

1. Divination by casting lots (sortilege).
2. Divination by throwing dice or any such marked objects, like beans, pebbles, or bone.

Quotations

• 1652 Gaule The Magastromancer xix.

  Cleromancy, by lotts...

• 1893 Howitt tr. Ennemoser Hist. of Magic ii.

  cleromancy - Is a kind of divination performed by the throwing of dice or little bones; and observing the points or marks turned up. At Bura, a city of Achaia, a celebrated Temple of Hercules, where such as consulted the oracle, after praying to the idol, threw four dice, the points of which being well scanned by the priest, he was supposed to draw an answer from them.

• 1970 Zolar Encyc. of Ancient & Forbidden Knowledge

  CLEROMANCY: A form of lot casting, akin to divination with dice, but simply using pebbles or other odd objects, often of different colors instead of marked cubes.