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The act of divining; a foreseeing or foretelling of future events; the pretended art discovering secret or future by preternatural means. There shall not be found among you any one that . . . useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter. Deut. xviii. 10.

One who practices or pretends to divination; a diviner. [R.] Burton.

One who professes divination; one who pretends to predict events, or to reveal occult things, by supernatural means. The diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain. Zech. x. 2.

ng. Divining rod, a rod, commonly of witch hazel, with forked branches, used by those who pretend to discover water or metals under ground.

A pretended deity of pagans; a false god. Beastly divinities, and droves of gods. Prior.

Pretended sleep. Addison.

A peddler or hawker, especially of cheap and flashy goods pretended to be smuggled; a duffer. [Eng.]

t or speech; insincerity; a sustained form of deception which consists in entertaining or pretending to entertain one of feelings, and acting as if influenced by another; bad faith. Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. Burke.

e who deviates from the rules of science and regular practice; an ignorant and unlicensed pretender; a quack; a charlatan. Among the Greek physicians, those who founded their practice on experience called themselves empirics. Krauth-Fleming. Swallow down opinions as silly people do empirics' pills. Locke.…

A riding, or the act of riding, on horseback; horsemanship. The pretender to equitation mounted. W. Irving.

do not know, to this hour, what it is that has estranged him from me. Pope. He . . . had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs, and had promised to act as a spy upon them. Macaulay.

To feign; to pretend to make. [Obs.] "And falsed oft his blows." Spenser.

mental existence to, as to something not real or actual; to imagine; to invent; hence, to pretend; to form and relate as if true. There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. Neh. vi. 8. The poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods. Shak.…

Not real or genuine; pretended; counterfeit; insincere; false. "A feigned friend." Shak. Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. Ps. xvii. 1. -- Feign"ed*ly, adv. -- Feign"ed*ness, n. Her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly. Jer. iii. 10. Feigned is…

One who feigns or pretends.

tive; as, to fertilize land, soil, ground, and meadows. And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. Byron.

s during all historic time, and by many savage peoples. -- Fire eater. (a) A juggler who pretends to eat fire. (b) A quarrelsome person who seeks affrays; a hotspur. [Colloq.] -- Fire engine, a portable forcing pump, usually on wheels, for throwing water to extinguish fire. -- Fire escape, a contrivance for facilitat…

Fox shark (Zoöl.), the thrasher shark. See Thrasher shark, under Thrasher. -- Fox sleep, pretended sleep. -- Fox sparrow (Zoöl.), a large American sparrow (Passerella iliaca); -- so called on account of its reddish color. -- Fox squirrel (Zoöl.), a large North American squirrel (Sciurus niger, or S. cinereus). In th…

A petty grammarian; a grammatical pedant or pretender. My noble Neophite, my little grammaticaster. B. Jonson.

A term used by jugglers in pretended incantations.