hoodoo

English

Etymology

Apparently an alteration of voodoo.

Some hoodoos (spires of rock).
A hoodoo, showing why it is also called a tent rock.

Noun

hoodoo (countable and uncountable, plural hoodoos)

  1. (uncountable) A set of spiritual practices and traditions created and concealed from slave-owners by enslaved Africans in North America, based on traditional African beliefs.
  2. (chiefly US) A practitioner of voodoo.
  3. (chiefly US) Supernatural bad luck, or something or someone believed to bring bad luck.
  4. (geology) A tall thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of arid basins and badlands.
    • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 71:
      It was even larger than the mirage made it look—a dozen miles across and a thousand feet deep, with fins and towers and hoodoos like observation posts, mesas and minor buttes, springs flowing brightly in the red rock.

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

hoodoo (third-person singular simple present hoodoos, present participle hoodooing, simple past and past participle hoodooed)

  1. (transitive) To jinx; to bring bad luck or misfortune to.

References
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