Augured

I learned this obscure word this week when I was reading “The Lottery Ticket”, in The Complete Casebook of Herlock Sholmes.

Augured – to foretell, especially from omens

Usage: “I augured success from the playful manner in which he hooked his umbrella upon my left ear.”

FYI From Merriam-Webster dictionary: “Did you know? Auguring is what augurs did in ancient Rome. Augurs were official diviners whose function it was not to foretell the future, but to divine whether the gods approved of a proposed undertaking, such as a military move. They did so by various means, among them observing the behavior of birds and examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. Nowadays, the foretell sense of the verb is often used with an adverb, such as well. Augur comes from Latin and is related to the Latin verb augēre, meaning “to increase.”