Editing Necromancy (section)

== Etymology ==

The word ''necromancy'' is adapted from [[Late Latin]] {{lang|la|necromantia}}: a loan word from the [[Koine Greek|post-Classical Greek]] {{lang|grc|νεκρομαντεία}} ({{Transliteration|grc|nekromanteía}}, or 'divination through a dead body'), a compound of [[Ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|νεκρός}} ({{Transliteration|grc|nekrós}}, or 'dead body') and {{lang|grc|μαντεία}} ({{Transliteration|grc|manteía}}, or 'divination').

The Koine Greek compound form was first documented in the writings of [[Origen|Origen of Alexandria]] in the 3rd century AD.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] (OED) |title=necromancy, ''n.'' |url=http://oed.com/view/Entry/125700 |edition=3rd |date=September 2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, UK |access-date=2012-04-26 |archive-date=2019-12-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191215022138/http://oed.com/view/Entry/125700 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=A. |last2=Donaldson |first2=J. |year=1995 |title=The Ante-Nicene Fathers |volume=II/XIII |location=Michigan |publisher=Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing Company}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Kapcar |first=Andrej |date=January 1, 2015 |title=The Origins of Necromancy or How We Learned to Speak to the Dead |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333390417 |access-date=August 31, 2022 |website=Researchgate.net}}</ref> The Classical Greek term was {{lang|grc|ἡ νέκυια}} ({{Transliteration|grc|[[nekyia]]}}), from the episode of the ''[[Odyssey]]'' in which [[Odysseus]] visits the realm of the dead souls, and {{lang|grc|νεκρομαντεία}} in Hellenistic Greek; {{lang|la|necromantīa}} in [[Classical Latin|Latin]], and ''necromancy'' in 17th-century English.<ref>[http://oed.com/view/Entry/125745 necyomancy, ''n.''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200405200433/https://oed.com/start;jsessionid=EAEA71B29057801E62B9BE075A3482D7?authRejection=true&url=%2Fview%2FEntry%2F125745 |date=2020-04-05 }}, ''OED''.</ref>