Chart basics · Beginner
Horoscope
Originally the rising degree of a chart, later the whole chart, and today mostly a newspaper-style forecast by Sun sign.
The Greek hōroskopos meant “hour-watcher”: the point of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon, which astrologers now call the Ascendant. The word spread to mean the whole chart, and in the twentieth century to the short Sun-sign forecasts in magazines and newspapers, which use none of a person's chart beyond the month of birth.
- Where sources differ
- Practitioners who draw full charts often avoid the word because of the newspaper sense.
Sources
- Astrodienst AstroWiki: Horoscope (opens in a new tab) practitioner
- Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos I.4, “Of the Power of the Planets” (Robbins translation, 1940) (opens in a new tab) historical
Written for Cool Moon Facts in its own words. An astrology source documents what astrologers believe or practise; it does not establish that astrology works.