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oracle

UK/ˈɔɹəkəl/US/ˈɔɹəkəl/
nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,598 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: oracles

An oracle is a person or place through which a god was said to answer. Consult the oracle, the oracle at Delphi, the oracle spoke.

The famous answers were ambiguous enough to be right either way, which is either fraud or wisdom depending on your view — Croesus was told he would destroy a great empire, and destroyed his own. The word names both the answer and the place. The Latin means to speak.

John William Waterhouse · Public domain

Definitions of oracle

  1. 1nounoracleA person or place through which a god was said to answer.B2+

    “The king travelled to Delphi to ask the oracle whether he should go to war.”

oracle is a source of prophecy.

Where it comes from

Latin oraculum comes from orare, to speak or pray. It names both the answer and the place it came from.

  1. Latin

    ōrāculum

  2. Old French

    oracle

  3. Middle English

    oracle

  4. English, today

    oracle

From Middle English oracle, from Old French oracle, from Latin ōrāculum.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Belief & Ritual, Myths & Legends, Fairy Tales & Folklore

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oracle in the wild

  • The oracle is one of the best-documented religious institutions of the classical Greeks.

    Pythia

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.