vaticination

I had originally intended this blog to focus primarily on new coinages, to be a resource for early citations for dictionary makers and such. 'Cause, y'know, I figured I already knew most of the existing words that were worth knowing. But most of the really new coinages that I encounter aren't that interesting to me--they're often just variations on existing words, with meanings that are obvious at a glance--whereas it's turned out that a high percentage of the words I encounter that I wasn't previously familiar with have been around for quite some time.

Case in point: "vaticination."

I'm finally reading Tristram Shandy, and finding a variety of words I don't think I've ever seen before. Early on in the book, there's a parson named Yorick, and a friend of his tells him that by his plain-speaking he makes too many enemies, who will one day do him harm. The narrator continues:

Yorick scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read over to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye[....]

--chapter XII, p. 32 of the Everyman's Library edition

A vaticination is a prediction, or the act of predicting. Comes straight from Latin.