hoodoo

Etymology

Apparently an alteration of voodoo.

noun

  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.
    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. 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 71

verb

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

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