haruspex

/həˈrʌspɛks/

haruspex noun: a soothsayer or priest in Ancient Rome (originally Etruscan) who practiced haruspicy, divination by inspecting entrails.

Noun

haruspex (plural haruspices)

A soothsayer or priest in Ancient Rome (originally Etruscan) who practiced haruspicy, divination by inspecting entrails.
- 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?1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
- 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.2013, Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

Borrowed from Latin haruspex.

What does haruspex mean?: Haruspex means a soothsayer or priest in Ancient Rome (originally Etruscan) who practiced haruspicy, divination by inspecting entrails.
What part of speech is haruspex?: Haruspex is a noun.
How do you pronounce haruspex?: Haruspex is pronounced /həˈrʌspɛks/.
What is the plural of haruspex?: The plural of haruspex is haruspices.

Adapted from Wiktionary: haruspex (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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