Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A form of religious belief of African origin, practiced in some parts of the West Indies, Jamaica, and nearby tropical America, involving sorcery.
- n. An object, charm, or fetish used in the practice of this religion.
Wiktionary
- n. A form of folk magic, medicine or witchcraft originating in Africa and practiced in parts of the Caribbean.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Same as obi.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (West Indies) followers of a religious system involving witchcraft and sorcery
- n. a religious belief of African origin involving witchcraft and sorcery; practiced in parts of the West Indies and tropical Americas
Etymologies
- Origin uncertain. Apparently from a Caribbean creole, probably ultimately from a West African language. The OED points to Igbo abià ("knowledge, wisdom"), obìa ("doctor, healer"). (Wiktionary)
- Black and West Indian English, of West African origin; akin to Efik ubio, anything noxious, something put in the ground to cause sickness or death, bad omen. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“British West Indies under that of "obeah," and which sometimes lead even to human sacrifices.”
“It is believed the items were part of an "obeah" ritual done by a criminal defendant, who hoped for supernatural intervention that his court case would be dismissed.”
“If Hinds was living in an area of the Caribbean where old folklore is alive and well, he might have thought that he was the target of an 'obeah' curse.”
“The slave owners were encouraged to insist on conversion of the slaves to Christianity as a way of de-popularizing the obeah religion.”
“Does the inclusion of obeah as a real force in 18th century novels about slavery make them horror, or fantasy, or are the authors using an element of the spooky unknown in some sort of larger context?”
“They were Jamaican ghosts who could be summoned from the grave and made to do the bidding of an obeah man.”
“Crack was still the kinder-chanting sing-song thing you avoided on the sidewalk -- in order not to break your Momma's back -- and not an extended enchanted evening of white-rocked witchcraft inculcated by a dangerously ambitious Bad Lieutenant Colonel and teenage obeah men carrying divination rods that resembled AR-15's.”
Barry Michael Cooper: Michael Jackson Agonistes: An American Pop'era In Three Acts
“A woman who claimed she could help another get pregnant by using obeah and took over $1.5 million in cash an jewellery to do so was yesterday jailed for one year when she appeared at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate's Court.”
“Magistrate Fazil Azeez also fined Sharon Lall, who pleaded guilty to a charge of practicing obeah to defraud, $20,000.”
“Thus, those who practised obeah, ‘necromancy’ or engaged in supernatural practices, are encouraged to continue to prey on their victims with impunity as they enrich themselves with unjust earnings.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obeah’.
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philosophia obscura
a collection of strange, unusual, hidden and forgotten ideas and beliefs
xenophanean, ailuromancy, philology, scop, spagyric, obeah, tref, anhedonia, syssitia, dybbuk, helot, nescience and 2 more...
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wreckingball's Words
reprehensible, problematize, crepuscular, deleterious, pestilent, strumpet, draggletail, interrobang, meretricious, systematize, schadenfreude, capricious and 443 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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fantasy & horror story
obeah, cenobite, protean, amaranth, obfuscate, auspex, cyclopean, quietus, vicissitude, metastasize, lugubrious, vicissitude and 1 more...
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Amulets
charm, talisman, totem, fetish, voodoo, juju, churinga, zogo, horseshoe, holy-stone, bezoar, toadstone and 57 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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samjan06's Words
gravalicious, fisticuffs, superfluous, vex, cantankerous, prescience, omniscience, antithesis, microcosm, posthumous, paraphernalia, propaganda and 39 more...
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voodoo
pagan, imbolc, ostara, beltane, midsummer, lughnasadh, mabon, samhain, yule, loa, obeah, unnamed and 9 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for obeah.
chained_bear Usage on Candomblé. Mar 16, 2009