in church history, a sect who condemned all use of flesh, and marriage, as not instituted by God, but introduced at the instigation of the devil. The word is compounded of the privative a, and ym, woman. They are sometimes also called Agynenses, and Agynii: and are said to have appeared about the year 694. It is no wonder they were of no long continuance. Their tenets coincide in a great measure with those of the Abelians, Gnostics, Cerdonians, and other preachers of chastity and abstinence.

AGYRTÆ, in antiquity, a kind of strolling imposters, running about the country to pick up money, by telling fortunes at rich men's doors; pretending to cure diseases by charms, sacrifices, and other religious mysteries; also to expiate the crimes of their deceased ancestors, by virtue of certain odours and fumigations; to torment their enemies, by the use of magical verses, and the like. The word is Greek, Αγυρται, formed of the verb αγυρει, "I congregate;" alluding to the practice of charlatans or quacks, who gather a crowd about them.

Agyrtæ, among the Greeks, amount to the same with Ærusracates among the Latins, and differ not much from gypsies among us.