Prophesier

[…] the Welshemen gat firste the West hill, hopyng to haue recouered the East hil: whiche if thei had obteined, the victory had been theirs, as their vnwise Prophesiers promised them before.

Come, bring forth this counterfeit module, he has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier.

1811, George Canning, “On the Report of the Bullion Committee,” speech given on 8 May, 1811, in Robert Walsh (editor), Select Speeches of the Right Honourable George Canning, Philadelphia: Crissy & Markley, 1853, p. 141, Never did the wildest and most hostile prophesier of ruin to the finances of this country venture to predict that a time should come, when, by the avowal of Parliament, nominal amount in paper, without reference to any real standard value in gold, would be the payment of the public creditor.

He had four chattering daughters who were always prophesying the end of the world and seemed to have little time for the work of the household. Still, Philip’s fat wife cooked well and they would all have eaten a pleasant meal together—the daughters, when not prophesying, were good silent trencherwomen—if another regular prophesier had not called, well remembered from Antioch, his name Agabus.