dybbuk
Americannoun
-
dybbuks,
plural
-
dybbukim
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dybbuk
First recorded in 1900–05; from Yiddish dibek, from Hebrew dibbūq, derivative of dābhaq “cleave (to)”; spelling dybbuk is a Polish transliteration of the Hebrew word
Vocabulary lists containing dybbuk
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:
“She is dealing with the death of her father and her mother’s depression — and then there’s a wandering spirit or dybbuk that is ornery and disruptive,” said Higuera.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 7, 2022
Parents must work together to save their young daughter from a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit that inhabits and ultimately devours its human host.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2019
Polish director Marcin Wrona, who wrote the movie with Pawel Maslona, has thoroughly reconceptualized the mythology of the dybbuk for 21st-century Eastern Europe.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 13, 2016
By the time the newlyweds are dancing in the farmhouse barn, surrounded by raucously celebrating, progressively drunk family and friends, the dybbuk has crashed the party.
From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2016
My fingers felt numb and inflexible, frozen around the shard as though my skin was just a glove for the dybbuk.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
I supposed even dybbukim weren’t spared from remembering.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
I grew up on stories of holy men parting the river Bistrița, golems shaped from clay, and, of course, those possessive spirits called dybbukim.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
“But dybbukim don’t make girls disappear into thin air,” said Clara.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
“If that banished dybbukim, then this wouldn’t be a problem.”
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
“It is believed that dybbukim possess the living so that they may perform tasks they were unable to complete in life. What were those words he had you write, Alter?”
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
Mr. Kroll and Mr. Mulaney don’t so much portray Gil and George as allow themselves to be taken over by them, as if by dybbuks.
From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2015
This is the thing with dybbuks, they know how to get under your skin.
From New York Times ● Jan. 16, 2013
The images he conjured with the insect-like scratchings of his inked nib possessed him as dybbuks their host.
From Time Magazine Archive
The attributions are graceful but hardly necessary, for Poe and Melville rattle around in this book like a couple of dybbuks.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Nobel laureate chooses 47 tales of demons, dybbuks and exuberantly flawed men and women, set mainly in his native Poland and his adopted Manhattan.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
