soothsayer
noun
Did you know?
The origins are straightforward: a soothsayer is someone who says sooth. You may, however, find that less than enlightening! Sooth is an archaic word meaning "truth" or "reality" that dates from Old English and was used until about the first half of the 17th century. (It is believed to share an ancestor with words suggesting truthfulness and reality in Old Norse, Greek, Old High German, Sanskrit, Latin, and Gothic languages.) Soothsayer itself has been documented in print as far back as the 14th century. Today, it is also a moniker of the insect the mantis, whose name means "prophet" in Greek.
Synonyms
Examples of soothsayer in a Sentence
Chadd Scott, Forbes, 14 Sep. 2024
Whether on Instagram or CNN, analysts (professional and self-appointed) behave like modern-day soothsayers, peering at the tea leaves of polls, social media, video clips and the general zeitgeist to utter words of prophecy and, increasingly, doom.
—Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times, 5 July 2024
Fanon persists in the activist imagination as a kind of radical soothsayer, an intellectual who can speak authoritatively about our moment because of his identity as a Black man and colonial subject who personally experienced the barbarity of a colonizing power.
—Vulture Editors, Vulture, 4 June 2024
When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theater involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s first musical.
—Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press, 10 May 2024
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“Soothsayer.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soothsayer. Accessed 6 Nov. 2024.
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soothsayer
noun
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