nigromancy

• igramansie, igramansy, igrimansie, nagramisse, negromancie, negromancy, nicromansie, nicromancy, nigomancy, nigramansy, nigromansie, nycromancie, nycromancy, nygramyce, nygramyssy, nygromansie (mostly obsolete)

From Middle English nigromauncy, from Old French nigromancie, nigremance, from Late Latin nigromantia, a blend of niger (“black”) and necromantīa (“necromancy”). Compare black art.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈnɪɡɹə(ʊ)mansi/

nigromancy (countable and uncountable, plural nigromancies)

1. (now historical) Necromancy; magic involving death. [from 14th c.]
   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 22, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume I, London: Harrison and Co., […], published 1781, OCLC 316121541:

     But ah! celestial enchantress! the negromancy of thy tyrannical charms hath fettered my faculties with adamantine chains […] .

   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], OCLC 230694662:

     "I hope thou wilt bring with thee Rebecca, even the scholar of the wise Miriam, whose cures the Gentiles slandered as if they had been wrought by nigromancy."

   • 1999, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, translating Paracelsus, Astronomia Magna, in Essential Readings, North Atlantic Books 1999, p. 126:

     Whoever can deal with these mortal spirits and command them to do his business is proficient in the second species of nigromancy.

• acronyming