Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Poltergeist |
PoltergeistNoun1. A ghost that announces its presence with rapping and the creation of disorder. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "poltergeist" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1869. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Medicine | Spirits which make noise, throw articles of furniture, upset objects, rap walls, and cause commotion. . . . A growing theory holds that they are activated by the presence of girls between. . . 12 and 18. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A poltergeist (German for noisy ghost) is an invisible entity (ghost) that moves (and throws) objects and causes electrical malfunctions by telekinesis. Doing so classifies them as (inter)active spirits, in contrast to non-interactive ones which engage only in minimal action such as showing themselves. Poltergeister (German plural) are mischievous beings, and connected to an object (usually a building) or a person. The haunting by a poltergeist is called infestation. Most classic poltergeist stories and (presumably) incidents originate in England.Famous (said-to-be) poltergeist infestations :
Both the word and the concept poltergeist became famous by the Poltergeist movies and the TV series Poltergeist - The Legacy.
- The demon drummer of Tedworth (17th century)
- The Borley Rectory phenomena (20th century)
There is a poltergeist named Peeves in the Harry Potter books.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Poltergeist."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Poltergeist curse is an urban legend type of rumor that's been attached for years to the Poltergeist movies series and its stars.The idea that the cast of the movies was in some way "cursed" is a superstition based on these facts: four of the stars on these movies died deaths that can be characterized by the credulous as mysterious or tragic. It is not clear that this particular film differs from others in the number or nature of the deaths of its actors.
Various urban legends surrounding the film have been attributed to the potential cause of the curse. The most widely blamed is that allegedly real human skeletal remains were used as props in the first film, causing the angry spirits of the deceased to wreak havoc.
The Poltergeist series is just one of a handful of movies and series that have been said to have been "cursed". Some other movies and series include Rebel Without a Cause, Diff'rent Strokes, The Crow and In The Heat Of The Night (TV series).
In Poltergeist's case, the actors and actresses who died include:
- Dominique Dunne, 22 year old actress who played the oldest sister Dana in the first movie died after being stabbed and choked to death by a jealous boyfriend in 1982. The boyfriend was later convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.
- Heather O'Rourke, 12 year old actress who played Carol Anne in the three Poltergeist movies, died in 1988 after what doctors initially described as an acute form of a flu but later changed it to a septic shock after bacterial toxins invaded her bloodstreams.
- Julian Beck, 60 year old who played Kane in part 2, died of stomach cancer.
- Will Sampson, 53 years old, Taylor The Medicine Man in part 2, died of post operative kidney failure and preoperative malnutrition problems.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Poltergeist curse."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Poltergeist Movies are a series of horror films produced by Steven Spielberg from 1982 to 1988.Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers
In the first movie, the family's 5 year-old daughter, "Carol Anne," is taken through a television set by a group of ghosts and held hostage. A spiritual healer and a ghost expert are eventually brought in, allowing her mother to also pass through the TV to the "other world" to save her. The two sequels (1986 and 1988) followed a path of different ghosts stalking "Carol Anne" and her other family members too.
Some of the stars in the movie suffered unfortunate fate, for which the movie series has been dubbed as having a Poltergeist Curse.
Partial credits
A TV series, Poltergeist, The Legacy, is a spin-off of this movie series.
- Craig T. Nelson, Steve Freeling
- JoBeth Williams, Diane Freeling
- Dominique Dunne, Dana Freeling
- Heather O'Rourke, Carol Anne Freeling
Movie producers had planned to film more sequels, but those plans were dashed by O'Rourke's death at the age of 12.
See also: Poltergeist
Externa links
- IMDb entry on Poltergeist
- IMDb entry on Poltergeist II
- IMDb entry on Poltergeist III
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Poltergeist movie series."
Crosswords: Poltergeist |
| Non-English Usage: "Poltergeist" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. German (poltergeist), Italian (poltergeist). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | There's a poltergeist in the house (Scary Movie 2; writing credit: Shawn Wayans; Marlon Wayans) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Poltergeist III (1988) Der Poltergeist (1981) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Play | Caption |
 | Boo; ghost; scare; scary; sneak up; sneaked up; surprise; surprising; sneaking up; ghoul; phantom; poltergeist; Halloween. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Poltergeist" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 96.67% of the time. "Poltergeist" is used about 30 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) | 96.67% | 29 | 64,444 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 3.33% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 30 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "poltergeist": poltergeist-like. | |
| 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. |
| Language | Translations for "poltergeist"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | روح شريرة (evil spirit, ghost, ghoul). (various references) | |
Czech | strašidlo (bugbear, fright, ghost, spectre, spirit, spook). (various references) | |
French | poltergeist, esprits frappeurs, esprit frappeur. (various references) | |
German | poltergeist, klopfgeist. (various references) | |
Hungarian | szellem (appearance, cock of the walk, genious, ghost, intellect, jinn, jinnee, jinni, mind, moral, morale, shade, shadow, soul, specter, spectre, spirit, spook, wit), kopogó szellem, kísértet (apparition, appearance, bogey, boggle, bogy, eidolon, ghost, phantasm, phantom, shadow, specter, spectre, spook, vampire, wraith), házi kísértet. (various references) | |
Italian | poltergeist. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | '霊 , ポリ燐酸 (low-lying land reclaimed from the sea, polka, polka dot, polyphosphoric acid, Porsche, Portugal). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ポルターガイスト , そうれい (funeral, in the prime of manhood, magnificence, pompousness, splendour). (various references) | |
Manx | scaanjoon feiyral. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | oltergeistpay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | espírito (esprit, genie, ghost, go, jinnee, mind, nous, psyche, python, soul, spirit, sprite, tone, wit), demônio (archenemy, archfiend, belial, daemon, demon, deuce, dickens, fiend, genius). (various references) | |
Romanian | strigoi (ghost, hobgoblin, spirit, vampire), moroi (ghost, hedgehog). (various references) | |
Russian | полтергейст. (various references) | |
Spanish | duende (brownie, daemon, duende, elf, Goblin, hob, hobgoblin, leprechaun, puck, sprite). (various references) | |
Turkish | yaramaz ve gürültücü cin, afacan peri (puck). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | привид (apparition, appearance, boggard, bogy, caddy, eidolon, ghost, haunter, presence, spectre, spook, waff, wraith), примара (apparition, appearance, boggard, bogie, caddy, eidolon, ghost, illusion, phantom). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | yêu tinh (elfin, goblin, ogre, pooka, sprite). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "poltergeist": poltergeists. (additional references) | |
| |
"Poltergeist" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: poltergeis, poltergiest. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "poltergeist" (pronounced pō"ltergī'st) |
| 4 | -g ī' s t | zeitgeist. |
| 3 | -ī' s t | overpriced, sacrificed, underpriced. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-g-i-l-o-p-r-s-t-t" | |
-2 letters: epistoler, lotteries, pistoleer, portliest, potteries, sortilege, teleports. | |
-3 letters: epistler, glitters, gospeler, grisette, peltries, perlites, petioles, plotters, plottier, plotties, poetiser, poetries, poitrels, politest, prestige, pretties, proettes, proteges, reptiles, retitles, splitter, spottier, teleport, tergites, treetops, triolets, triplets. | |
-4 letters: egotist, elegist, elegits, elopers, epilogs, epistle, estriol, etoiles, getters, glister, glitter, glories, glottis, goiters, goitres, goriest, gristle. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-g-i-l-o-p-r-s-t-t" | |
+1 letter: poltergeists. | |
+2 letters: herpetologist. | |
+3 letters: herpetologists. | |
| 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. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Sounds 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
