Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Necromancy |
NecromancyNoun1. Conjuring up the dead, especially for prophesying. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "necromancy" was first used: 13th century. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Literature | Necromancy means prophesying by calling up the dead, as the witch of Endor called up Samuel. (Greek, nekros, the dead; manteia, prophecy.). Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The historian Strabo (Strabo, xvi. 2, 39, νεκρομαντεις) makes reference to necromancy as the principle form of divination amongst the people of Persia; and it is believed also to have been widespread amongst the peoples of Chaldea (particularly amongst the Sabeists or star-worshippers), Etruria and Babylonia. The Babylonian necromancers themselves were called Manzazuu or Sha'etemmu. The raised spirits in Babylon were called Etemmu.
In the Odyssey (XI), Ulysses makes a voyage to Hades, the Underworld, and raises the spirits of the dead using spells which he had acquired from Circe. His intention was to invoke the shade of Tiresias, but was unable to summon it alone without the accompaniment of others.
Biblical references abound. The Book of Deuteronomy (XVIII 9-12) explicitly warns the Israelites against the Canaanite practice of divination from the dead. This does not necessarily mean that all of the Israelites heeded this advice: King Saul asked the Witch of Endor to invoke the shade of Samuel, for example, and there are many other notable evocations of the dead within the Bible. Some might argue that Jesus Christ's raising of Lazarus from the dead was a prima facie case of necromancy.
The 17th century Rosicrucian Robert Fludd describes Goetic necromancy as consisting of "diabolical commerce with unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and invocations and in the evocation of the souls of the dead".
Modern seances, channeling and Spiritualism verge on necromancy when the invoked spirits are asked to reveal future events.
Necromancy may also be dressed up as sciomancy, a branch of theurgic magic.
Necromancy is extensively practised in voodoo.
In modern society, it has become an element contained within many role playing games and fantasy novels. Interfering with the repose of the dead is typically considered an extremely evil act.
In this fictional context, necromancers are usually considered evil, and are said to have sold their soul to a demon or the devil himself, or worship evil gods, or have been otherwise tainted by their evil practices. As such, in most contexts where necromancers exist, one or more churches are devoted to slaying Necromancers and their undead minions. Some necromancers are neither evil nor good, and use necromancy for their own purposes.
Necromancers raise the dead as "undead", causing the decaying corpse (zombie) or bare bones (skeleton) to act under the necromancer's will. There are two primary categories of undead, corporeal and incorporeal. The former have tangible bodies, and are usually affected by normal weaponry; the latter have an insubstantial existence.
In the X-Files television series 7, the episode Millennium deals extensively with the subject of necromancy.
The short horror story The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs is considered a classic of the genre.
See also:
Necromancy in fiction
Sources:
External Links
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Necromancy."
Synonym: NecromancySynonym: Enchantment. (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Prediction | Noun: prediction, announcement; program, programme; (plan); premonition; (warning); prognosis, prophecy, vaticination, mantology, prognostication, premonstration; augury, auguration; ariolation, hariolation; foreboding, aboding; bodement, abodement; omniation, omniousness; auspices, forecast; omen; horoscope, nativity; sooth, soothsaying; fortune telling, crystal gazing; divination; necromancy. |
Sorcery | Noun: sorcery; occult art, occult sciences; magic, the black art, necromancy, theurgy, thaumaturgy; demonology, demonomy, demonship; diablerie, bedevilment; witchcraft, witchery; glamor; fetishism, fetichism, feticism; ghost dance, hoodoo; obi, obiism; voodoo, voodooism; Shamanism, vampirism; conjuration; bewitchery, exorcism, enchantment, mysticism, second sight, mesmerism, animal magnetism; od force, odylic force; electrobiology, clairvoyance; spiritualism, spirit rapping, table turning. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Necromancy |
| English words defined with "necromancy": Gramarye ♦ -mancy ♦ necromantic, necromantical, Nigromancie ♦ Occult sciences ♦ Psychomancy. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "necromancy": internecine ♦ mania ♦ Noxious, Nuisance. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Necromancy (1972) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | Then absolutely concluded, that all these appearances could be nothing else but necromancy and magic. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Necromancy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Necromancy" is used about 14 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 14 | 93,893 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
necromancy | 150 |
necromancy spells | 13 |
art necromancy | 2 |
deception necromancy | 2 |
magick necromancy | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "necromancy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | magji e zezë (devilry, deviltry, diablerie, diabolism), magji (bewitchment, black magic, cantrip, conjuration, enchantment, glamor, glamour, hex, incantation, magic, medicine, pishogue, sorcery, spell, witchcraft, witchery, wizardry). (various references) | |
Arabic | سحر (attractiveness, bedevil, bewitch, bewitchment, catch, charm, conjure, diablerie, enamor, enamour, enchantment, fascinate, fascination, glamor, glamour, incantation, infatuation, loveliness, magic, magnetize, matinee, mesmerize, overlook, pleasantness, prestige, quaintness, ravishment, relish, smite, sorcery, spell, spellbind, temptation, weirdness, witch, witchcraft, witchery, wiz, wizardry, zest), عرافة (augury, hag, hex, witchcraft, wizardry), إستحضار الأرواح (spiritism). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | черна магия (black magic), некромантия, магия (bewitchment, black art, cantrip, charm, conjuration, enchantment, hex, magic, obi, theurgy, witchcraft, witchery, wizardry). (various references) | |
Czech | èerná magie (black magic, devilry). (various references) | |
French | nécromancie. (various references) | |
German | geisterbeschwörung (exorcism), Zauberei (bewitchment, conjuring trick, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, wizardry). (various references) | |
Greek | νεκρομαντεία. (various references) | |
Hebrew | אוב (leather bag, magic, skin, sorcery). (various references) | |
Hungarian | varázslás (enchantment, incantation, sorcery, witchcraft, witchery, wizardry), szellemidézés (psychomancy), halottidézés. (various references) | |
Italian | negromanzia. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 巫女寄せ (sorcery, spiritism), 口寄せ (spiritualism). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | くちよせ (spiritualism), み"よせ (sorcery, spiritism). (various references) | |
Manx | marroo-ghruaight. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ecromancynay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | nigromante. (various references) | |
Romanian | necromanţie, vrãjitorie (diabolism, sorcery, spell-work, witchcraft, witchery), solomonie. (various references) | |
Russian | некромантия. (various references) | |
Scottish | tairm. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | nekromantija, prizivanje duhova (spirit rapping). (various references) | |
Spanish | nigromancia (black magic). (various references) | |
Swedish | svartkonst. (various references) | |
Thai | เวทมนตร์คาถา, การใช้เวทมนตร์. (various references) | |
Turkish | ruh çağırarak fala bakma, büyücülük (conjuration, diablerie, magic, myalism, sorcery, the black art, voodooism, witchcraft, witchery, wizardry). (various references) | |
Ukranian | чорна магія (diabolism, witchery), чаклунство (conjury, enchantment, hoodoo, incantation, magic, medicine, voodoo, witchcraft, witchery), некромантія. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | thuật gọi h"n. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Late Latin | 300-700 | necromantia. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Necromancy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: necormancy, necromance, necromency, Necrosanct, nefcromancy, neuromancy, Oneiromancy. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "necromancy" (pronounced ne"kruma'nsē) |
| 3 | -n s ē | absorbency, accountancy, agency, ascendancy, ascendency, bouncy, buoyancy, chancy, clemency, cogency, competency, complacency, Conservancy, consistency, constancy, constituency, consultancy, contingency, counterinsurgency, currency, decency, deficiency, delinquency, dependency, despondency, deviancy, discrepancy, dormancy, efficiency, emergency, equivalency, excellency, exigency, expectancy, expediency, fancy, fiancee, fluency, frequency, hesitancy, immunodeficiency, incompetency, inconsistency, inconstancy, incumbency, indecency, inefficiency, infancy, infrequency, insolvency, insurgency, interagency, irrelevancy, latency, leniency, malignancy, militancy, mincy, Nancy, nonemergency, occupancy, poignancy, potency, pregnancy, presidency, proficiency, redundancy, regency, relevancy, residency, resiliency, solvency, stridency, stringency, sufficiency, teensy, tenancy, tendency, transparency, truancy, urgency, vacancy, vagrancy, vibrancy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-c-e-m-n-n-o-r-y" | |
-3 letters: acronym, annoyer, anymore, cannery, canonry, concern, moneran, romance. | |
-4 letters: ancone, anonym, anyone, cancer, canner, canyon, carmen, carney, conner, cornea, cranny, crayon, creamy, enamor, macron, manner, moaner, yeoman. | |
-5 letters: acorn, ancon, annoy, anomy, cameo, caner, canny, canoe, canon, carny, carom, comae, comer, coney, corny, coyer, crane, cream, crone, crony, cyano, cymae, cymar, enorm, macer, macon, macro, manor, mayor, meany, mecca, mercy, money, morae, moray, nacre, namer, nance, nancy, narco, nomen, nonce, ocean, ocrea, onery, racon, ramen, rance, rayon, recon, reman, roman, yamen, yearn. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-c-e-m-n-n-o-r-y" | |
+5 letters: necromantically. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4E 65 63 72 6F 6D 61 6E 63 79 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-. . -.-. .-. --- -- .- -. -.-. -.--. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001110 01100101 01100011 01110010 01101111 01101101 01100001 01101110 01100011 01111001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)N e c r o m a n c y |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004E 0065 0063 0072 006F 006D 0061 006E 0063 0079 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)48716984817967806991 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Orthography 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
