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.
a person who practices this religion.
a fetish or other object of Voodoo worship.
a group of magical and ecstatic rites associated with Voodoo.
Sometimes Offensive. voodoo. (loosely) black magic; sorcery.
of, pertaining to, associated with, or practicing Voodoo.
Informal: Sometimes Offensive. voodoo. characterized by deceptively simple, almost as if magical, solutions or ideas.
voodoo economics.
Also called: voodooism. a religious cult involving witchcraft and communication by trance with ancestors and animistic deities, common in Haiti and other Caribbean islands
a person who practises voodoo
a charm, spell, or fetish involved in voodoo worship and ritual
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.
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”
Voodoo is a set of religious beliefs mainly followed by people in Caribbean countries and the Southern United States. People who practice voodoo believe that death is a transition from the visible to the invisible world. You may see voodoo portrayed on TV and in movies as a scary, violent cult that uses black magic and voodoo dolls to torment people. In reality, voodoo is a varied, community-centered religion with deep African influences, which often incorporates Catholic saint imagery. Voodoo comes from the Louisiana French voudou, ultimately from a West African language.
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He established himself as a commercial force with his 1995 debut album, also called Brown Sugar, and won two Grammys for the 2000 follow-up, Voodoo.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2025
D'Angelo was an acclaimed R&B singer and won plaudits for albums including his 1995 debut "Brown Sugar" and "Voodoo," released in 2000.
From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2025
He started taking his music seriously in the 1990s, around when he joined Natural Elements, a local underground group that also touted Mr. Voodoo among its members.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2024
While Benin has many Christians - comprising nearly half the population - Voodoo is embedded in most people’s lives.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 29, 2023
Voodoo was silly, I knew, but it was also frightening.
From "The Cay" by Theodore Taylor
Saar was drawn to the Caribbean nation because of her interest in voodoo and magic — and the power that these could confer on inanimate objects.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
Baron Samedi, a shadowy cane-wielding, top-hatted Haitian voodoo figure, slips in and out of the hubbub, with Leonardo Brito’s performance feeling more ad-libbed by the dancer than astutely choreographed by Ms. García.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025
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.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 27, 2025
While we wouldn’t rule out the possibility he has a huge collection of Labubus or Malibu Stacy dolls, he seems more like the type to use voodoo dolls.
From Slate ● Sep. 26, 2025
They worshiped everything living and everything dead, for voodoo embraces death as its company, not its enemy.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
The big Voodoos can stay at high altitudes for hours, attacking again and again.
From Time Magazine Archive
But, mark you this! it is only those who believe in, and fear, the power of the Voodoos that are affected.
From Clairvoyance and Occult Powers by Panchadasi, Swami
The Voodoos, or black wizards in America, profess to be able to awaken love in one person for another by means of incantations, but admit that it is the most difficult of their feats.
From The Mystic Will A Method of Developing and Strengthening the Faculties of the Mind, through the Awakened Will, by a Simple, Scientific Process Possible to Any Person of Ordinary Intelligence by Leland, Charles Godfrey
Now let me get this thing clear," said he: "Colonel Menendez believed that people called Voodoos wanted to kill him?
From Bat Wing by Rohmer, Sax
It is only those who believe in, and fear, the power of the Voodoos that are so affected.
From Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers by Atkinson, William Walker
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.
