DIVINATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does divination mean? 

• DIVINATION (noun)
  The noun DIVINATION has 3 senses:

1. successful conjecture by unusual insight or good luck

2. a prediction uttered under divine inspiration

3. the art or gift of prophecy (or the pretense of prophecy) by supernatural means

  Familiarity information: DIVINATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIVINATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Successful conjecture by unusual insight or good luck

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("divination" is a kind of...):

conjecture; guess; hypothesis; speculation; supposition; surmisal; surmise (a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A prediction uttered under divine inspiration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

divination; prophecy

Hypernyms ("divination" is a kind of...):

forecasting; foretelling; prediction; prognostication (a statement made about the future)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "divination"):

oracle (a prophecy (usually obscure or allegorical) revealed by a priest or priestess; believed to be infallible)

Derivation:

divine (perceive intuitively or through some inexplicable perceptive powers)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The art or gift of prophecy (or the pretense of prophecy) by supernatural means

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

divination; foretelling; fortune telling; soothsaying

Hypernyms ("divination" is a kind of...):

prognostication; prophecy; vaticination (knowledge of the future (usually said to be obtained from a divine source))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "divination"):

arithmancy (divination by means of numbers)

dowse; dowsing; rhabdomancy (searching for underground water or minerals by using a dowsing rod)

geomancy (divination by means of signs connected with the earth (as points taken at random or the arrangement of particles thrown down at random or from the configuration of a region and its relation to another))

hydromancy (divination by water (as by patterns seen in the ebb and flow of the tides))

lithomancy (divination by means of stones or stone talismans)

necromancy (conjuring up the dead, especially for prophesying)

oneiromancy (divination through the interpretation of dreams)

onomancy (divination by the letters of a name)

chirology; chiromancy; palm reading; palmistry (telling fortunes by lines on the palm of the hand)

pyromancy (divination by fire or flames)

Derivation:

divine (perceive intuitively or through some inexplicable perceptive powers)

 Context examples 

Then, with a flash of divination, he saw the situation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)