Word.ws English Dictionary

cromniomancy

cromniomancy noun: divination by onions or onion sprouts.

Noun

cromniomancy (uncountable)

  1. Divination by onions or onion sprouts.
    • Burton […] speaks of "cromnysmantia," a kind of divination with onions laid on the altar at Christmas Eve, practised by girls, to know when they shall be married, and how many husbands they shall have. This appears also to have been a German custom.1660, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy in Brand Popular Antiquities (1844) iii.
    • cromniomancy consisted of laying onions on which certain names had been written upon the altar on Christmas Day; when these were planted the one which sprouted first would give the required indication.1931, Lock tr. de Givry, Picture Museum of Sorcery

Origin of cromniomancy

From Ancient Greek κρόμμῠον (krómmŭon, “onion”) + -mancy.

Questions about cromniomancy

What does cromniomancy mean?
Cromniomancy means divination by onions or onion sprouts.
What part of speech is cromniomancy?
Cromniomancy is a noun.

Words near cromniomancy in the dictionary

  1. Cromley
  2. Cromleys
  3. Crommie
  4. Crommies
  5. crommyoxyregmia
  6. cromniomancy
  7. cromoglicate
  8. cromoglicates
  9. cromoglicic acid
  10. cromoglycate
  11. cromoglycates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cromniomancy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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