Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Hoodoo |
HoodooNoun1. A practitioner of voodoo. 2. A charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers. 3. Something believed to bring bad luck. Verb1. Bring back luck; be a source of misfortune. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "hoodoo" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1917. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Mining | A fantastic column, pinnacle, or pillar of rock produced in a region of sporadic heavy rainfall by differential weathering or erosion of horizontal strata, facilitated by joints and by layers of varying hardness, and occurring in varied and often eccentric or grotesque forms.Syn:rock pillar. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Hoodoo is a folk religion or traditional magic which originated in the southern United States. The goal of Hoodoo is to allow people access to supernatural forces to influence their daily lives.Hoodoo is believed to have influence in many areas, including gambling, love, divination, cursing one's enemeies, treatment of disease, employment, and necromancy. Many patent medicines were aimed at Hoodoo practitioners. Signifigant use is made of various home-made potions and charms, but there are also many sucsessful commercial companies selling various Hoodoo components.
While Hoodoo and Voodoo share some elements and may have a common etymology, the terms generally refer to different beliefs and practices. Hoodoo is largely based on traditional African practices, though it drew signifiantly from Native American folklore, especially the use of herbs and other botanical elements. Elements of various Christian, Jewish and European folk practices found their way into Hoodoo.
Most adherents have been black, but whites and native americans also used Hoodoo.
Hoodoo is used as a noun to describe a magic spell or potion, as a title for a powerful practitioner (Hoodoo Doctor, Hoodoo Man or Hoodoo Woman), or as an adjective or verb depending upon context. The word can be dated at least as early as 1891. Some pracitioners prefer the term Hoodooism, but this has mostly fallen out of use. Synonyms include conjuration, witchcraft, or rootwork. The latter demonstrates the importance of various roots in the making of charms and casting spells.
Due to Hoodoo's great emphasis on an individual's magical power, practices are easily adapted based on one's desires, inclination and habits. Knowledge is passed person to person; there is no structured heirarchy.
Like many other folk magics, great emphasis is placed on herbs, minerals, parts of animals' bodies, an individual's posessions, and bodily fluids, especially menstrual blood, urine and semen.
Many blues musicians referred to Hoodoo in their songs, and such elements have become important to the music.
Zora Neale Hurston recorded many Hoodoo practices and tales.
See also
- Vodun
External link
- Hoodoo in Theory and Practice by Catherine Yronwode: http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html
- Blues Lyrics and Hoodoo: http://luckymojo.com/blues.html
A hoodoo is a geological feature consisting of a freestanding column of stone. Hoodoos are usually found in arid desert regions, carved by windborne dust. They are composed of soft sedimentary rock, and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column against attack from above.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hoodoo."
Synonyms: HoodooSynonyms: fetich (n), fetish (n), juju (n), voodoo (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Inexpedience | Evil doer; bane; plague spot; (insalubrity); evil star, ill wind; hoodoo; Jonah; snake in the grass, skeleton in the closet; amari aliquid, thorn in the side. |
Sorcerer | Noun: sorcerer, magician; thaumaturgist, theurgist; conjuror, necromancer, seer, wizard, witch; hoodoo, voodoo; fairy; lamia, hag. |
Sorcery | Verb: practice sorcery;Noun: cast a nativity, conjure, exorcise, charm, enchant; bewitch, bedevil; hoodoo, voodoo; entrance, mesmerize, magnetize; fascinate; (influence); taboo; wave a wand; rub the ring, rub the lamp; cast a spell; call up spirits, call up spirits from the vasty deep; raise spirits from the dead. |
Noun: sorcery; occult art, occult sciences; magic, the black art, necromancy, theurgy, thaumaturgy; demonology, demonomy, demonship; diablerie, bedevilment; witchcraft, witchery; glamor; fetishism, fetichism, feticism; ghost dance, hoodoo; obi, obiism; voodoo, voodooism; Shamanism, vampirism; conjuration; bewitchery, exorcism, enchantment, mysticism, second sight, mesmerism, animal magnetism; od force, odylic force; electrobiology, clairvoyance; spiritualism, spirit rapping, table turning. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Circus Hoodoo (1934) Hoodoo Ranch (1926) The Hoodoo Hat (1912) Hoodoo McFiggin's Christmas (1995) Le Noël de Hoodoo McFiggin (1988) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
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| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Darktown sociables, a "fancy dress" hoodoo. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Hoodoo" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Hoodoo" is used about 11 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 11 | 106,044 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "hoodoo": hoodoo column. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
hoodoo | 58 |
hoodoo gurus | 56 |
voodoo hoodoo | 8 |
hoodoo spells | 7 |
hoodoo in psalm use | 3 |
gurus hoodoo lyrics | 3 |
hoodoo medicine | 3 |
fogerty hoodoo john | 2 |
gurus hoodoo tab | 2 |
hoodoo rhythm devil | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "hoodoo"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | sjell tersllëk, shtyllë shkëmbore, kolonë natyrore, jam ters. (various references) | |
Arabic | حظ عاثر (adversity, mishap), سبب النحس, جالب النحس. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | омагьосвам (bedevil, bewitch, charm, enchant, glamor, glamour, spellbind, voodoo, witch), нося нещастие на, магии (devilry, diablerie), ерозионен или еолов стълб, правя магии (conjure). (various references) | |
Czech | smùla (bad luck, hard luck, ill luck, mischance, misfortune, pitch). (various references) | |
Danish | erosionspille (demoiselle, earth pyramid, earth-pillar, erosion column, fairy chimney, hoodoo column, penitent, rain pillar, sand pinacle). (various references) | |
Dutch | aardpyramide (demoiselle, earth pyramid, earth-pillar, erosion column, fairy chimney, hoodoo column, penitent, rain pillar, sand pinacle). (various references) | |
Finnish | maapyramidi (demoiselle, earth pyramid, earth-pillar, erosion column, fairy chimney, hoodoo column, penitent, rain pillar, sand pinacle). (various references) | |
French | porter la guigne, poisse, imposteur, guigne. (various references) | |
German | Unglücksbringer (hoodoos). (various references) | |
Greek | κακότυχοσ (ill fated, jinx, luckless, unfortunate, unlucky), γρουσούζησ (jinx). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מכשף (magus, sorcerer, wizard), מבשר רע (bearer of ominous tidings, sinister). (various references) | |
Hungarian | balszerencsét hozó dolog. (various references) | |
Italian | menagramo. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 疫病神 (jinx, pest, plague). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | やくびょうがみ (jinx, pest, plague). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | oodoohay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | emoo, confisso, agitao (gurgitation, heartbeat, hurly-burly). (various references) | |
Romanian | piazã-rea (jinx). (various references) | |
Russian | шаманство (shamanism), колдовство (pishogue, sorcery, sortilege, witchcraft, witchery, wizardry), неудача (hard luck, mischance, mishap). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | baksuz (bad luck, jinx, jonah). (various references) | |
Spanish | vudú (voodoo), persona que trae mala suerte, mala suerte (bad luck), gafe (jinx), gafancia (propensity to attract bad luck). (various references) | |
Swedish | trolldom (sorcery, witchcraft), olycks-. (various references) | |
Turkish | voodoo, uğursuzluk getirmek (be inauspicious, jinx, put a jinx on), uğursuzluk (bad luck, evil, hex, ill luck, ill omen, inauspiciousness, jinx), uğursuz tip, uğursuz şey (jinx), uğursuz (accursed, accurst, baleful, black, bloody, demon, dire, evil, fateful, ill fated, ill-omened, inauspicious, ominous, portentous, sinister, unlucky, untoward), büyü yapmak (bewitch, glamorize, hex, jinx, practise sorcery, put a jinx on, voodoo, witch), büyü (charm, enchantment, fascination, glamor, glamour, hex, incantation, magic, maya, medicine, romance, sorcery, sortilege, spell, the black art, voodoo, witchcraft, witchery), şanssızlık (adversity, bad, bad luck, blow, contretemps, hard line, hard luck, ill luck, mischance, misfortune, rotten luck, sorrow). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | чаклунський (enchanting, necromantic, weirdly, wizard), чаклунство (conjury, enchantment, incantation, magic, medicine, necromancy, voodoo, witchcraft, witchery), чаклун (charmer, conjurer, conjuror, enchanter, magician, magus, necromancer, voodoo, weird), шаманство, нещасливий (calamitous, hapless, ill fated, ill-starred, infelicitous, luckless, unhappy, wanchancy), знахарський (wise). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sự không may vật xúi. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "hoodoo": hoodooed, hoodooing, hoodooism, hoodooisms, hoodoos. (additional references) | |
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"Hoodoo" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: doodoo, dooooo, Foofoo, hodo, Hodoul, Hoodie, hoo-doo, hoodoon, hoooo, hoooom, hoooomm, hopovo, hudo, Husodo, Momodou, Nooooo, oodu, ooooo, Ooooooo, shooooo, soooooo, tooooo. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-h-o-o-o-o" | |
-2 letters: hood. | |
-3 letters: hod, oho, ooh. | |
-4 letters: do, ho, od, oh. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-h-o-o-o-o" | |
+1 letter: hoodoos. | |
+2 letters: boohooed, hoodooed. | |
+3 letters: hoodooing, hoodooism. | |
+4 letters: hoodooisms, photoflood. | |
+5 letters: neoorthodox, nonorthodox, photofloods. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
