[f. prec. + -ER1. In mod.F. conjectureur.]
† 1. An interpreter of omens or dreams; an augur, diviner, prognosticator, fortune-teller. Obs.
1612. R. Sheldon, Serm. St. Martins, 48. Who is so simple a coniecturer as cannot presage vpon whose head the beane would be bruised.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 309. A certain courser … dreamt … that he was carried thither in a chariot, and, consulting a conjecturer upon it, [etc.].
1684. trans. Agrippa’s Van. Artes, xxxix. 105. Dreams … whose Interpreters are properly call’d Conjecturers.
1718. Bp. Hutchinson, Witchcraft, xii. 184. Observers of the flying of Birds, Conjecturers.
1736. Disc. Witchcr., 6. Conjurers, or Conjecturers … so called from their guessing at the future Event of Things.
2. One who makes conjectures.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell. (1634), 18. These witty conjecturers seeme to forget that the Saxons when first they had this name, were unacquainted with the Latine tongue.
1621. Molle, Camerar. Liv. Libr., IV. xii. 272. The Coniecturers making of this one word [Satyr] two, told him very prettily, Sa-Tyros, that is, Tyrus is thine.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 271, ¶ 3. I shall leave these wise Conjecturers to their own Imaginations.
1768. Johnson, Pref. to Shaks., Wks. IX. 292. The collator’s province is safe and easy, the conjecturer’s perilous and difficult.
1880. Dowden, in Academy, 16 Oct., 270. A student … who possesses the first folio … may defy the race of Commentators and Conjecturers.
