banshee

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FYI: I want you to know that I've researched this matter, and the banshee was the most unreal person there was, for she would wail outside your house, making the most ungodly noise, before or after you were dead, whether you were dying or not!)

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Definitions (3)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A female spirit in Gaelic folklore believed to presage, by wailing, a death in a family.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Chapter Two Screeching like a dispossessed banshee, a large hammer-nosed bat soared out of one of the narrow inlets off the creek and swerved straight towards the cutter. —  The Drowned World
  • With a howl like an enraged banshee, the hairy chemist was out of the car. —  100 - The Headless Men
  • The thing would go off like a banshee, I'd scramble out of bed to turn it off, and by the time I'd found it and turned it off I was willing to accept that I was awake for the day. —  Ask MetaFilter
  • I was dancing like a banshee with my girlfriends while he looked dubiously on with the boys. —  Top stories from Times Online
  • "I was screaming like a banshee," John Lombardi said.
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Irish Gaelic bean sídhe, woman of the fairies, banshee : bean, woman (from Old Irish ben; see gwen- in Indo-European roots) + sídhe, fairy (from Old Irish síde, genitive of síd, fairy mound; see sed- in Indo-European roots).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Gael, ban-sīth, Irish beansīdhe, literally woman of the fairies, from Gael, ban, Irish bean, woman, + sith, Irish sigh, sighe, sighidh (the final consonant being scarcely sounded), fairy.
 

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/ˈbænʃi/
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