AUGUR, in Antiquity, an officer or minister among the Romans, appointed to observe the chattering and feeding of birds; and by means thereof, form conjectures about future events. See AUGURY. The augurs made a college or community, which at first consisted of three persons, then four, and lastly nine; four of them patricians, and five plebeians.—Cicero was of the college of augurs. See COLLEGE. They bore an augural staff, or wand, as the ensign of their office and authority. The word augur is derived from avis, bird, and garritus, chattering. Pezron derives it from the Celtic av, liver, and gur, man: so that according to him, an augur is properly a person who inspects the entrails, and divines by means of the liver: others derive it from the Arabic ogor, good fortune. Augurs, properly speaking, differed from auspices, and augury from auspicy, in that the former was in strictness confined to the chirping of birds, and the latter to their flying, feeding, etc. See AUSPICES, etc.
