in Antiquity, a kind of strolling impostors, 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 αγυρται, I congregate; alluding to the practice of charlatans or quacks, who gather a crowd about them.

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