Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person or thing that is believed to bring bad luck.
  • noun A condition or period of bad luck that appears to have been caused by a specific person or thing.
  • transitive verb To bring bad luck to.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Slang To bring bad luck to; to cause to malfunction or go wrong.
  • noun Slang A person, object, influence, or supernatural being which is supposed to bring bad luck or to cause things to go wrong.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A hex; an evil spell.
  • noun A person or thing supposed to bring bad luck.
  • verb transitive To cast a spell on.
  • verb transitive To bring bad luck to.
  • interjection Used after the same response is said by two people simultaneously. Often, a game is played where the person who failed to say "jinx" first becomes "jinxed", whereby they cannot speak until someone says their name.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an evil spell
  • verb foredoom to failure
  • noun a person believed to bring bad luck to those around him
  • verb cast a spell over someone or something; put a hex on someone or something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly from jynx, wryneck (from its use in witchcraft), from Latin iynx, from Greek iunx, perhaps from iuzein, to call, cry.]

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