Chaldean

• Chaldaean
• Chaldæan (archaic)
• Chaldee (via Middle French, dated)

From Latin chaldaeus [from Ancient Greek Χαλδαῖος (Khaldaîos)] +‎ -an.

• IPA^(key): /kælˈdi.ən/

• Audio (Southern England):

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Chaldean (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to Chaldea specifically, or ancient Babylonia in general.
   • 2009, “Daimonos”, performed by Behemoth:

     Honour me! Chaldean priests / Bow to me in adoration

Chaldean (plural Chaldeans)

1. A native or inhabitant of Chaldea.
   • 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 254:

     The Chaldeans had great faith in Ea, their god of healing, to whom prayers were said in case of sickness, but herb remedies were also given the patient by the god's representative in the community.

   • 1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page 14:

     The Chaldeans worshipped the seven planets. These seven planets were the "Seven Great Gods" of the ancients, and constituted a polytheism, the component members of which varied in importance, with the moon occupying the premier position.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 130:

     Astrologers, when they observe this pattern, insist that it corresponds to the zodiacal progression. I am not an astrologer and I hold no brief for it, but I do believe the origins of astrology are not with the Chaldeans of Mesopotamia but with the hunters and gatherers of the Stone Age.

2. A member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
3. (biblical) A diviner or astrologer.
   • 1953, B. L. van der Waerden, “History of the Zodiac”, in Archiv für Orientforschung, volume 16, page 223:

     Older Babylonian astrology, which flourished in Kassite and Assyrian times (1400-700 B.C.) had a quite different character: it aimed at short-range predictions of general public events, such as wars and harvests, from striking phenomena such as eclipses, clouds, annual rising and setting of planets, whereas the Hellenistic "Chaldaeans" predicted individual fates from positions of planets and zodiacal signs at the date of birth or conception. [...] So the individual character of horoscopic astrology should not be stressed too much. The essential new feature is, that positions of planets and zodiacal signs are used for long-range predictions. Now these positions are by no means striking events: planets may be invisible, and signs are never visible. The data needed for a horoscope had, in most cases, to be calculated from tables. We ignore how, when and why this transformation took place. But it could only take place in Babylonia, where tables were available for calculating positions of planets at remote dates. Not without reason astrologers were called "Chaldaeans" throughout the Roman Empire!

Chaldean

1. The West Semitic language of the ancient Chaldeans.
2. (historical) Synonym of Biblical Aramaic (now considered a misnomer).
3. Synonym of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic.

• “Chaldean”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.