What is "vates"

1620s, "poet or bard," specifically "Celtic divinely inspired poet" (1728), from Latin vates "sooth-sayer, prophet, seer," from a Celtic source akin to Old Irish faith "poet," Welsh gwawd "poem," from PIE root *wet- (1) "to blow; inspire, spiritually arouse" (cognates: Old English wod "mad, frenzied," god-name Woden; see wood (adj.)). Hence vaticination "oracular prediction" (c.1600).

n. A poet or bard who is divinely inspired.

The English-Latin noun vates is a term for a prophet, following the Latin term. It is the origin of the English term ovate for an Irish bard. The earliest Latin writers used vātēs ( to denote "prophets" and soothsayers in general; the word fell into disuse in Latin until it was revived by Virgil. Thus Ovid could describe himself as the of Eros ( Amores 3.9).

According to the Ancient Greek writers Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Poseidonius, the were one of three classes of Celtic priesthood, the other two being the druids and the bards. The Vates had the role of seers and performed sacrifices (in particular administering human sacrifice) under the authority of a druid according to Roman and Christian interpretation. The Celtic word is continued by Irish "prophet, seer," and gwawd "scorn, satire, scoff" in Welsh.