a. and sb. [f. L. Chaldæus = Gr. Χαλδαῖος Chaldean + -AN.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to Chaldea or its inhabitants; hence, to occult science or magic.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., vi. § 20. Whether in Daniel’s prophecy of the Messiah we should compute by the Chaldean or the Julian year.
1845. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos., in Encycl. Metrop., II. 566/1. This Chaldean imposture, the substitution of grand notions of nature for a belief in God.
B. sb. A native of Chaldea, esp. (as at Babylon) one skilled in occult learning, astrology, etc.; hence gen. a seer, soothsayer, astrologer. (So Gr. Χαλδαῖος, L. Chaldæus.)
1581. Marbeck, Bk. of Notes, 77. The Chaldeans wer most renowmed in Astrologie that euer were anie.
1611. Bible, Dan. ii. 2. Then the King commanded to call the Magicians, and the Astrologers, and the Sorcerers, and the Caldeans, for to shew the King his dreames.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect. (1851), 305. The feind therefore that told our Chaldean the contrary was a lying feind.
c. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Fam. Ep., Wks. (1711), 148. How can a Chaldean, by that short minute … in which a man is born, set down the diverse changes … of his life.
1859. Rawlinson, Bampton Lect., Notes 438. In Daniel the Chaldæans are a special set of persons at Babylon, having a ‘learning’ and a ‘tongue’ of their own (Dan. i. 4), and classed with the magicians, astrologers, &c.
Hence † Chaldeanizing ppl. a.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 278. Why might not the Chaldæanizing Oracle be drawn to confesse so much against it selfe?
