Word.ws English Dictionary

soothsayer

UK/ˈsuːθˌseɪə//ˈsuθˌseɪɚ/

soothsayer noun: one who attempts to predict the future, using magic, intuition or intelligence; a diviner.

Noun

soothsayer (plural soothsayers)

  1. One who attempts to predict the future, using magic, intuition or intelligence; a diviner.
    • It is a great pleasure to be with you today and to speak to you concerning the future of medicine. In so doing, I do not wish to pose as a soothsayer or crystal gazer.1951 March, John W. Cline, “The Future of Medicine”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 3, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 165
    • The past twenty years have seen their share of soothsayers ready to predict with conviction one extreme or another of the alternative futures I have presented.1988, Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York: Basic Books, page 7
  2. A mantis (Mantodea spp.)
  3. (obsolete) One who tells the truth; a truthful person.
  4. A double dart moth (Graphiphora augur).

soothsayer meaning in Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Arabic

soothsayer in Bengali

গণক, ভবিষ্যৎ বক্তা

soothsayer in Malayalam

oracle, seer, augur
ഭവിഷ്യ്വാദി, ഭാവിഫലം പറയുന്നവൻ, നോട്ടക്കാരൻ, മഷിനോട്ടക്കാരൻ, മഷിക്കാരൻ, ദെെവവിത്ത്

soothsayer in Kannada

ಕಾಲಜ್ಞಾನಿ, ಭವಿಷ್ಯ ಹೇಳುವವನು, ಕಣಿಹೇಳುವವನು, ಕಣಿಯ, ಕಣಿಯತಿ

soothsayer in Arabic

one who predicts the future
عَرَّاف ʕarrāf, بَصّار baṣṣār, مُتَنبِّئ, مُتَكَهِّن mutakahhin
one who tells the truth
كاهِن kāhin
More languagesFewer languages
soothsayer in Vietnamese
thầy bói

Forms of soothsayer

pluralsoothsayers
alternative form (obsolete)southsayer

Origin of soothsayer

From Middle English sothsaier, zothziggere, by surface analysis, sooth (“truth”) + sayer.

Words formed from soothsayer

Questions about soothsayer

What does soothsayer mean?
Soothsayer means one who attempts to predict the future, using magic, intuition or intelligence; a diviner.
What is soothsayer in Bengali?
Soothsayer in Bengali is গণক, ভবিষ্যৎ বক্তা. See Soothsayer meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is soothsayer?
Soothsayer is a noun.
How do you pronounce soothsayer?
Soothsayer is pronounced /ˈsuθˌseɪɚ/ (US).
What is the plural of soothsayer?
The plural of soothsayer is soothsayers.

Words near soothsayer in the dictionary

  1. sooths
  2. soothsaid
  3. soothsaw
  4. soothsaws
  5. soothsay
  6. soothsayer
  7. soothsayers
  8. soothsaying
  9. soothsayings
  10. soothsays
  11. soothy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soothsayer (page history and authors); soothsayer (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); soothsayer (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); soothsayer (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-soothsayer.oga.

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