horcrux

• Horcrux

Coined by author J. K. Rowling through the random "transposition of syllables,"[1] though fans have pointed to the possible influence of Middle English hore (“iniquity, evil, sin”) and English crux (“the central or essential part”).[2] The term first appears in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005).

horcrux (plural horcruxes)

1. In the Harry Potter series, an object in which a wizard has concealed a part of their soul through magic, rendering them immortal until the object is irreparably damaged or destroyed.

   Synonym: phylactery (general fantasy)

   • 2013, Adam Rawlins, The Strange Encounter of Sally Shakespeare and Toby Tinker‎, page 24:

     They stared at it as if it was the one ring or the holy grail or a horcrux, or perhaps all of them rolled into one. An empty, plastic cat food bowl.

   • 2013, Teddy Steinkellner, Trash Can Days: A Middle School Saga‎, page 20:

     They were standard fit, vintage wash, pretty expensive, and I showed them to him and I said, “These are yours if you want them.” And do you know what he did? He actually flinched. Like these were haunted pants or something. Like these were Horcrux jeans with a piece of Lord Voldemort’s soul in them.

   • 2016, Joe Halstead, West Virginia‎, page 38:

     Again, he didn’t say anything and she asked him about the arrowhead—was it his Horcrux or something? was there a piece of his soul trapped inside it?—and he shrugged it off.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:horcrux.
2. (by extension) Something in which one has invested a part of one's self; an object which allows for the preservation of memory, culture, etc.
   • 2016, Cheryl B. Klein, The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults‎, page 338:

     When I read manuscripts, I feel very aware that some part of the writer's soul lives in the pages—like a good Horcrux, say—and if I’m turning one down, I need to do so with thoughtfulness and respect.

   • 2016, Tommy Wallach, Thanks for the Trouble, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN:

     And I loved the way they looked, all those journals lined up on a single bookshelf in my room, carving a path through time that you could follow, like a trail of bread crumbs, from that first day in Dr. Milton’s office right up to the present. It was as if I’d archived myself inside them—my own private horcruxes.

   • 2021, Curt Cloninger, Some Ways of Making Nothing: Apophatic Apparatuses in Contemporary Art‎, page 383:

     Via nostalgia and sentimentality, objects act for humans as unwitting mnemonic horcruxes (my analogy, not Schwenger’s), storing parts of our memories inside themselves for our later involuntary retrieval.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:horcrux.