Word.ws English Dictionary

ptarmoscopy

ptarmoscopy noun: the divinatory interpretation of sneezes.

Noun

ptarmoscopy (uncountable)

  1. (rare) The divinatory interpretation of sneezes.
    • He divined by Metascopy, the lines in the forehead; […] by Ptarmoscopy, sneezing; […]1901, Maria Ward Brown, The life of Dan Rice, page 352
    • A catalogue of ancient sneezes and sneeze-interpretation (ptarmoscopy) is also provided.2005, Robert J. Rabel, Approaches to Homer, Ancient and Modern, page xiii

Origin of ptarmoscopy

From Ancient Greek πταρμός (ptarmós, “sneeze”) + -scopy.

Questions about ptarmoscopy

What does ptarmoscopy mean?
Ptarmoscopy means the divinatory interpretation of sneezes.
What part of speech is ptarmoscopy?
Ptarmoscopy is a noun.

Words near ptarmoscopy in the dictionary

  1. ptaquilosides
  2. ptarmic
  3. ptarmics
  4. ptarmigan
  5. ptarmigans
  6. ptarmoscopy
  7. ptarmus
  8. PTAs
  9. ptas.
  10. PTB
  11. PTBD

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ptarmoscopy (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:

Cite this entry: “ptarmoscopy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ptarmoscopy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.