DCHP-3

hoodoo

[of African origin, related to voodoo]
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

1n.

something associated with bad luck, as an evil, malignant spell.

Quotations

1892
An Indian woman in the Sioux camp south of town recently gave birth to a child with two heads . . . A dog feast to counteract the "hoodoo" was held on the day following.
1932
The hoodoo that seemed to wait on Captain Knight was already at work, for the want of a sailing vessel seriously crippled his movements.
2†n.

a person of thing that brings bad luck; a jinx or Jonah.

Quotations

1913
Hoodoo, something that brings bad luck; the opposite of mascot.
1924
Need we wonder, then, that Jake got it into his head that Jacko was a "hoodoo," as he called it?
3†n.

a curiously-shaped pillar of clay, or cemented gravel, or other material, caused by erosion.

See: demoiselle(and picture)

Quotations

1793
[The banks were here composed of high white cliffs, crowned with pinnacles in very grotesque shapes.]
c1902
The gnomes, called in trappers' vernacular "hoodoos" great pillars of sandstone higher than a house, left standing in valleys by prehistoric floods--were to the Crows and Blackfeet petrified giants that only awakened at night to hurl down rocks on intruding mortals.
1940
This similarity extends even to such peculiar phenomena as the presence in Jasper Park of a group of hot springs of medicinal value, and earth pillars or "hoodoos" similar to those at Banff.
1962
Approximately 500 feet across the highway [8 miles east of Drumheller] the fascinating Hoodoos can be seen and examined.