hoodoo

hoodoo pronunciation

/HOO-doo/

Meaning

First, hoodoo is African American Southern folk magic: roots, charms, and work meant to protect, heal, or cross somebody. Rural white talk borrows the word for any mysterious bad luck, a person who brings it, or getting cheated in a deal ("he hoodooed me"). Same mouth might mean conjure one day and a jinxed truck the next.

How folks use it

• “Grandma swore somebody put a hoodoo on that old truck.”
• “He got hoodooed on that horse trade and paid twice what it was worth.”

Origin and etymology

American English from the late 1800s, usually linked as a variant of voodoo, though hoodoo as a practice grew mainly in the Black South from African folk traditions mixed with other Southern roots. Popular talk stretched it to mean bad luck or a jinx. Exact word history is a little tangled; the folk-magic sense came first.

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