hex
verb (used with object)
to bewitch; practice witchcraft on.
hex
1 American
[heks]
/ hɛks /
verb (used with object)
-
hexes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hexed,
past participle, past
-
hexing
present participle
noun
-
hexes
plural
-
spell; charm.
With all this rain, somebody must have put a hex on our picnic.
-
a witch.
hex
2
American
[heks]
/ hɛks /
hex.
3
American
abbreviation
-
hexagon
-
hexagonal.
hex
1
British
/ hɛks /
noun
hex
2
British
/ hɛks /
verb
noun
-
an evil spell or symbol of bad luck
-
a witch
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hexsimple
-
hexessimple
-
have hexedperfect
-
has hexedperfect
-
am hexingprogressive
-
are hexingprogressive
-
is hexingprogressive
-
have been hexingperfect progressive
-
has been hexingperfect progressive
Past
-
hexedsimple
-
had hexedperfect
-
was hexingprogressive
-
were hexingprogressive
-
had been hexingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hex1
1820–30; < German Hexe witch; see hag 1
Origin of hex2
First recorded in 1920–25; by shortening
Explanation
A hex is a magic spell or charm that's meant to cause harm. A witch in a story, for example, might put a hex on a prince that turns him into a chicken. If you believe in magic, you might either fear hexes or aspire to learn how to put them on your enemies — to hex them. In the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition, "hex signs," forms of stars, flowers, and circles, are commonly painted on barns. Though tourists often interpret these as having superstitious meanings, they're really just folk art symbols. The Middle High German root of hex is Hexe, or "witch."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Now a coolheaded town is rationally panicking that the Presidential visit has put a hex on a team that couldn’t lose.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
Like the store’s sign, the sky glowed Big Orange, hex code #F96302, or Pantone 165 C, available in the paint department inside.
From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2026
So how, after decades of pain, have Scotland turned the tables in recent years and put a Calcutta Cup hex on the English?
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2025
People blowing up my phone like, “Man, it’s not fair. He gets 17 games,” or, “We’re going to put a hex on him.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 2024
Thorn’s voice cracked with desperation, and Seven could think of nothing to do but to continue chipping away at their wood prison and getting the hex out of there.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
It was difficult to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt something as ephemeral as the bewitching of a cow or any of the other supposed hexes Parsons had been accused of.
From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2022
For your bandwagon-getting-on purposes, let’s quickly bring you up to speed, lest you sound like an idiot — or, worse, say something that hexes our team.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 6, 2022
In the comics, Wanda’s powers allow her to control probability via her hexes — the same word for her powers is also the shape of the fictional city she’s made for herself, yes.
From The Verge ● Feb. 26, 2021
Side effects include nausea, dizziness, numbness, dumbness, Dementias, deletions, leeches, letches, hexes, hoaxes, hocus-pocuses, And, if there is justice, spiritual, moral, federal, state, & local charges.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 2, 2019
When I'm done, the bedroom will be two adjacent hexes with walls around them and a crude ceiling.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
New emblem’s meh, the ex-term smelt; The bevy, recent-Red-Type-Pelt — They’re fettered, hexed; the shell needs shed.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 10, 2022
She publicly hexed murderers and rapists, wrote 13 books on ritual and witchcraft and founded the long-running International Goddess Festival.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 7, 2021
There was Souki of the Montreal Expos, who resembled nothing so much as a Pez dispenser hexed into consciousness.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2021
And so I started to ask around: What should parents do about kindergarten, and only kindergarten, in this hexed year?
From Slate ● Aug. 5, 2020
Constance pointed out that none of them were antelopes eating canteloupes, or textbooks with hexed looks, or cattle from Seattle.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
“Whether it’s hexing the president, chatting in WhatsApp covens or featuring in TV reboots, radicalised women have been finding strength in the ancient pagan arts,” according to this bewitching piece in the Guardian.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 10, 2019
Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you stop hexing me.
From Golf Digest ● Apr. 19, 2011
Crosby was so superstitious about hexing his Pirates that he and Kathryn listened to the game with their friends Charles and Nonie de Limur in Paris.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2010
But trust me, all my friends who think it is ridiculous, in the last year, they have begged me to use my powers of hexing.
From Time ● Nov. 29, 2
“There’s no point hexing me,” squealed the sprite, “there’s the elf you want right there.”
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
