| 释义 |
hoodoo, n. and a. Chiefly U.S.|ˈhuːduː|
[App. an alteration of voodoo.]
A. n.
1. One who practises voodoo.
1875L. Hearn Amer. Miscellany (1924) I. 127 Supposing you fall in love with a girl and can't get her, and that you go to one of these hoodoos, he will do something awful to her with charms. Ibid., She would die..unless she could get some other hoodoo doctor to take the charm away by a counter charm. 1881Harper's Mag. Apr. 738/2 Suddenly she..rushed forward with an African yell and joined in the dance as wild as any Hoodoo among them. 1885Stevenson Dynamiter xi. 148 [A mulatto sorceress] exercising among her ancient mates, the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its reason is mysterious. Horrible rites, it is supposed, cement her empire: the rites of Hoodoo. Ibid. 175 To swear to them, on the authority of Hoodoo or whatever his name may be. 1946R. Tallant Voodoo in New Orleans 16, I heard people say hoodoos was cannibals and used to eat babies. Ibid. 195, I got Adele to a good hoodoo woman and she uncrossed her.
2. An occult cause of bad luck; a person or thing whose presence is supposed to bring bad luck.
1882J. H. Beadle Western Wilds (ed. 2) xxxiv. 558 If you can find an Indian tradition to match it, your hoodoo is complete. 1889N.Y. Sun 20 Mar. (Cent. Dict.), The prospect of pleasing his party and at the same time escaping a hoodoo must be irresistibly attractive. 1892Pall Mall G. 28 Dec. 3/3 This year I am a tramp, a dead-beat, a hoodoo! 1894Columbus (Ohio) Disp. 18 Sept., Superstitious persons are likely to think that T. J. starts in his race against B. with a heavy handicap, or ‘hoodoo’, in the language of the street. 1896Montreal Gazetteer 21 Nov. 12/4 The Hoodooed Texas..Means to exorcise the hoodoo which makes so much trouble for the battle-ship Texas. 1916H. Crane Let. 26 Jan. (1965) 3 Examination time is on... Latin and Geometry are due tomorrow. They are my hoodoos. 1945E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited vii. 177 So you see things never looked like going right. There was a hoodoo on us from the start. 1958L. van der Post Lost World of Kalahari viii. 195 By nightfall everyone..seemed convinced there was a permanent hoodoo on us.
3. A fantastic rock pinnacle or column of rock formed by erosion or other natural agency; an earth-pillar. Also attrib. orig. U.S.
1879W. Whitman Specimen Days & Collect. (1882) 148, I had wanted to go to the Yellowstone river region—wanted specially to see..the ‘hoodoo’ or goblin land of that country. 1884H. Butterworth Zigzag Journ. Western States 54 There is a region there called Goblin Land, full of lofty stone monuments, the remnants of erosion, called hoodoos. 1921Chambers's Jrnl. June 373/2 Strange, isolated pillars, the ‘hoodoos’ stood like vedettes on the heights. 1940Canad. Geogr. Jrnl. Feb. 84/2 The presence in Jasper Park of..earth pillars or ‘hoodoos’ similar to those at Banff. 1941C. A. Cotton Landscape iii. 15 The picturesque minor surface-relief forms termed hoodoo columns and earth pillars are slender residual columns of unconsolidated sediment. 1968R. W. Fairbridge Encycl. Geomorphol. 46/1 Occasionally, denudation of badland slopes can produce interesting features such as earth pillars and hoodoos with an overhanging ‘hat’.
B. adj. Unlucky, bringing bad luck.
1889Kansas Times & Star 17 Sept., Joe Bracken took sick Friday, September 13, but says that hoodoo date doesn't discourage him. 1904New York Globe 2 Apr. 1 It is hard to find a crew for a ‘hoodoo’ ship. 1909‘O. Henry’ Roads of Destiny vii. 110 He's the hoodoo planet of the heavens. 1922Blackw. Mag. Sept. 321/1 My name is Armstrong—Hoodoo Armstrong. 1926Scots Observer 30 Oct. 21/2 That particular service was hoodoo.
Hence hoodoo v. trans., to exercise occult influence over; to bewitch; to bring bad luck to.
1886Harper's Weekly 25 Dec., The surest way to provide against being ‘hoodooed’, as American residents call it, is to open one's pillow from time to time. 1888Judge (U.S.) 21 July 239/2 A Washington paper..drops into the following poetry, which is sufficient to hoodoo the organization for the balance of the season. 1895Chicago Advance 25 July 117/1 Like the Mississippi, it [the St. Laurence] hoodoos whoever once touches it. You return again and again, and go away regretfully. 1896Watertown (Wis.) Daily Times 9 Nov. 2/1 The coterie of democrats that hoodooed the Wilson bill. 1902Kipling Traffics & Discov. (1904) 7, I wasn't going to deadhead along o' that crowd... 'Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time. 1914V. Lindsay Congo 5 Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. |