Also 5 sortylege. [a. OF. sortilege (mod.F. sortilège, = It., Sp., Pg. sortilegio), or ad. med.L. sortilegium, f. L. sortilegus: see next.]

1

  1.  The practice of casting lots in order to decide something or to forecast the future; divination based on this procedure or performed in some other way; † sorcery, magic, witchcraft.

2

1387.  Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), II. 43. In þat ilond is sortilege and wicchecraft i-vsed. For wommen þere selliþ schipmen wynde.

3

1430–40.  Lydg., Bochas, VI. iv. (1554), 142. He delited most … In sortilege and in sorcerye.

4

1483.  Caxton, Cato, F ij. This cursyd synne of sortylege haboundeth more in wymmen than in men.

5

1546.  Bale, Eng. Votaries, I. 35 b. He sett vp a great scole at Caunterburye … and taught them … the art Magyck, Sortilege, Physnomye.

6

1584.  R. Scot, Discov. Witchcr., XI. x. (1886), 159. The cousening art of sortilege or lotarie.

7

1730.  Bailey (fol.), Sortilege, a Soothsaying or Divination by Lots; also an Electing by casting of Lots.

8

1830.  Scott, Demonol., ii. 66. They endeavoured by sortilege … to find as it were a byroad to the secrets of futurity.

9

1850.  Merivale, Rom. Emp., vi. (1865), I. 275. Three times, he related, had lots been drawn;… each time he had owed his life to the chance of sortilege.

10

1881.  Stanley, Christ. Instit., v. 87. Signs of what most Christians now would regard as mere remnants of sortilege and sorcery.

11

  2.  An act or instance of divining, choosing or deciding by the drawing or casting of lots.

12

1600.  Holland, Livy, XLIV. xxii. 1183. As the gods in favour have directed this sortilege, so they will bee present and propitious unto mee.

13

1795.  Wythe, Decis., 104. Another lottery, according to which the destiny of every ticket ought to have been decided by a single sortilege.

14

1819.  Scott, Ivanhoe, xxxvii. A woman infamous for sortileges and for witcheries.

15

1842.  Blackw. Mag., LI. 282. All treasonable assumptions … commenced in the hopes inspired by auguries, prophecies, or sortileges.

16

1868.  Milman, St. Paul’s, ii. 20. All sortileges, auspices, divinations, and other works of the devil, were forbidden.

17