Banshee

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /bænˈʃiː/

Definitions

1. A female spirit in Irish folklore whose wailing cry is believed to foretell the imminent death of a member of a particular family
2. A mythical female spirit from Irish traditions whose mournful scream warns of an approaching death in a family
3. An apparition of a woman in Celtic folklore known for her eerie cry that signals upcoming death to a specific family line

Etymology: The Irish word "bean sí" means "woman of the fairy mound," and it names a spirit whose wailing was believed to foretell a death in a household. Its Old Irish form, "ben síde," shows the same pairing of "woman" with "síde," the fairy mounds or otherworldly hills where the sídhe were thought to live. The English word is a direct borrowing from Irish, so it keeps the sense of a supernatural woman tied to a particular family rather than any general idea of a ghost. English speakers first recorded the term in 1771, which means it arrived with the wider English interest in Irish folklore of the later eighteenth century. The spelling "banshee" is an anglicised rendering of the Irish pronunciation, and the word has kept its original cultural core: the figure is a messenger of death, not a villain.

Synonyms: wailing woman, spirit, ghost, phantom, apparition