Voodoo

[voo-doo]

noun

plural

Voodoos 

1. Sometimes Vodoun a fusion of Afro-Caribbean Vodou and folk magic practiced chiefly in Louisiana, deriving ultimately from West African Vodun and containing elements borrowed from the Roman Catholic religion.

2. a person who practices this religion.

3. a fetish or other object of Voodoo worship.

4. a group of magical and ecstatic rites associated with Voodoo.

5. Sometimes Offensive.,  voodoo. (loosely) black magic; sorcery.

adjective

1. of, pertaining to, associated with, or practicing Voodoo.

2. Informal: Sometimes Offensive.,  voodoo. characterized by deceptively simple, almost as if magical, solutions or ideas.

   voodoo economics.

verb (used with object)

Voodooed, Voodooing 

1. to affect by Voodoo magic.

voodoo

/ ˈvuːduː /

noun

1. Also called: voodooism. a religious cult involving witchcraft and communication by trance with ancestors and animistic deities, common in Haiti and other Caribbean islands

2. a person who practises voodoo

3. a charm, spell, or fetish involved in voodoo worship and ritual

adjective

1. relating to or associated with voodoo

verb

1. (tr) to affect by or as if by the power of voodoo

voodoo

1. A form of animism (see also animism) involving trances and other rituals. Communication with the dead is a principal feature of voodoo. It is most common in the nations of the Caribbean Sea, especially Haiti, where people sometimes mingle voodoo and Christian practices.

Sensitive Note

The history of slavery in the Caribbean brought religious practices from enslaved West Africans into contact with the Roman Catholicism in French and Spanish colonies, and resulted in distinct New World religions like Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo. For some time, the most common name in English for these related religious traditions was Voodoo. Today the capitalized proper noun Voodoo is used only for the religion as practiced in Louisiana. The spelling Voodoo is considered offensive in naming religious practice outside of Louisiana, as in Haiti and Cuba, where the proper names are Vodou and Vodú, respectively. However, as the widely recognized term, Voodoo was also the one appropriated by popular culture to describe a number of practices poorly understood or purposefully exoticized by those outside of the religious community. Spiritual practices involving charmed objects loosely inspired the so-called “voodoo doll,” though no such practice of stabbing an effigy with pins is attested in the practice of Voodoo or Hoodoo. In Vodou, the “zombie” is a living but soulless individual whose free will has been taken by a powerful sorcerer or bocor, not the risen dead monster depicted in films, books, and video games. Ultimately, use of the word voodoo is complicated by widespread familiarity with the appropriated, secular, pop culture mythology of the entertainment industry—a mythology that poorly represents or directly conflicts with the authentic religious and historical core of Voodoo and related spiritual traditions such as Vodun, Vodou, and Hoodoo.

Other Word Forms

• voodooistic adjective
• voodooist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of Voodoo¹

An Americanism dating back to 1810–20; from Louisiana French, earlier vandoux, vandoo, from a West African source perhaps akin to Fon vodũ “spirit,” or Ewe vodu “tutelary deity, demon”

Word History and Origins

Origin of Voodoo¹

C19: from Louisiana French voudou, ultimately of West African origin; compare Ewe vodu guardian spirit

Example Sentences

The Bank of Japan, simultaneously, is scaling back bond purchases, ending a two-decade experiment in financial voodoo.

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Nigeria's football coach has accused the Democratic Republic of Congo of practising "voodoo" after his squad's hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup ended in a penalty shootout loss.

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In his post-match remarks to journalists, coach Eric Chelle said a member of the DR Congo team "did some voodoo, every time, every time, every time".

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The ghost tours in New Orleans are borderline legendary, with popular offerings focusing on the supernatural, New Orleans’ “Casket Girls,” and on the origins of Marie Laveau’s rise to notoriety as a voodoo priestess.

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Five years would pass before its follow-up, “Voodoo,” catapulted him to a level of fame that made him retreat from the public until 2014, when he returned with the more politically infused funk-fest of “Black Messiah.”

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• witchcraft