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The Word of the Day for January 12 is:

haruspex   \huh-RUSS-peks\   (noun)
     : a diviner in ancient Rome basing his predictions on
inspection of the entrails of sacrificial animals

Example sentence:
     The haruspex declared that the outcome of the battle would
be favorable.

Did you know?
     "Haruspex" was formed in Latin by the combination of
"haru-" (which is akin to "chorde," the Latin word for "gut")
and "-spex" (from the verb "specere," meaning "to look").
Appropriately, "haruspex" can be roughly defined as "one who
looks at guts." The ancient Romans had a number of ways of
determining whether the gods approved of a particular course of
action. Such divination was called "augury," and a haruspex was
a type of "augur," an official diviner of ancient Rome. (Other
augurs divined the will of the gods through slightly less
gruesome means, such as observing the behavior of birds or
tracking celestial phenomena.) "Haruspex," like "augur," has
developed a general sense of "one who prophesies," but this
use is somewhat rare.

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