palmistry

Noun

palmistry (usually uncountable, plural palmistries)

1. (usually) Telling fortunes from the lines on the palms of the hand.
   • Chiromantie is a coniecturyng by beholdyng the lynes, or wryncles of the handes called commonly Palmistry.1546, Thomas Langley, An Abridgement of the Notable Woorke of Polidore Vergile, London, Book 1, Chapter 18, p. 34b
   • And those fayre hands within whose louely palmes,
     Fortune diuineth happie Augurie,
     Those straightest fingers dealing heauenly almes,
     Pointed with pur’st of Natures Alcumie,
     Where loue sits looking in loues palmistrie.1593, Michael Drayton, Idea the Shepheards Garland, London: Thomas Woodcocke, Eglog 5, page 32

   Synonyms:

   chirognomy, chirography, chiromancy, handreading, palm reading

   1. (countable, usually) A book on palmistry; a system of palmistry.
      • No living palmistries can spell
        The bird-runes on the stretched silk of her hand1977, Peter Scupham, The Hinterland, Oxford University Press, page 27
      • Both the composition and the transmission of this palmistry must be taken in the context of the medieval Christian world, in which the life on earth was still secondary to the life in the hereafter; even so, texts such as these palmistries do make the unreadable mysteries of one’s relationship to...1991 May, Eriko Amino, “A Medieval Palmistry”, in Columbia Library Columns, volume 40, number 1, page 31
2. (obsolete, rare, usually) A dexterous use or trick of the hand.
   • In the Height of his Good-humour, meeting a common Beggar upon the Road who was no Conjuror, as he went to relieve him he found his Pocket was pick’d: That being a Kind of Palmistry at which this Race of Vermin are very dextrous.1711, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, Volume 2, No. 130, 30 July, 1711, London: J. and R. Tonson, 12th edition, 1739, p. 182

   Synonyms:

   legerdemain, sleight of hand