The notion of using the Greek noun
oneiros (meaning "dream") to form the English adjective
oneiric wasn't dreamed up until the mid-19th century. But back in the late 1500s and early 1600s, linguistic dreamers came up with a few
oneiros spin-offs, giving English
oneirocriticism,
oneirocritical, and
oneirocritic (each referring to dream interpreters or interpretation). The surge in
oneiros derivatives at that time may have been fueled by the interest then among English-speaking scholars in
Oneirocritica, a book about dream interpretation by 2nd-century Greek soothsayer Artemidorus Daldianus. In the 17th century, English speakers also melded Greek
oneiros with the combining form
-mancy ("divination") to create
oneiromancy, meaning "divination by means of dreams."