dowse1
/daʊz
/verb [no object]
1Practise dowsing: water is easy to dowse for...
- I also have no doubt that when practiced by someone with a good practical knowledge of field archaeology, dowsing with rods can sometimes hit the jackpot.
- I can tell you of Ph.D. physicists who believe that they can dowse, and who endorse dowsing rods and free-energy machines.
- I know mechanics who dowse to determine mechanical problems in cars, and other machinery and maintenance workers who use dowsing to find underground water lines, leaks, and electrical problems.
1.1 [with object] Search for or discover by dowsing: he dowsed a spiral of energy on the stone...
- The experts in this dowsers' society say you can successfully dowse anything at all.
- The moments of small victory are often limited to a shopping cart that stays when it is told to or sending a small hope before dowsing the wine aisle for a good vintage.
- So one Sunday morning soon after sunrise we entered the field and made our examinations, buried the bottles and dowsed the formation.
Derivatives
dowser
/ noun ...- Most psychics and dowsers, for example, do not even realize that they need to do controlled tests of their powers to rule out the possibility that they are deceiving themselves.
- Controlled experiments set up to test the abilities of dowsers have shown that dowsers are no better at finding hidden substances than chance would predict.
- Every dowsing organization, or dowser, that we have contacted, has ignored this offer.
Origin
Late 17th century: of unknown origin.
Rhymes
dowse2
verb
Variant spelling of douse.