Friday's Word of the Day

What arrived in my email inbox as I checked into the Accio conference:

sortilege (SOR-tl-ij) noun

1. Divination by drawing lots.

2. Sorcery; magic.

[From Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin sortilegium,
from Latin sortilegus, from sort-, from sors (lot) + legere (to read
or gather).]

"A 43-year-old citizen of Ghana was sentenced to one-month imprisonment
by the Bandar Magistrate's Court yesterday after he pleaded guilty to
using sortilege to deceive an owner of an Arabic food restaurant in
Kiulap."
'Witch-Doctor' Jailed For Deceiving Restaurant Owner; The Borneo
Bulletin (Brunei); Jun 30, 2005.

From www.wordsmith.org.