Jins

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Mythical supernatural beings believed to have free will and powers beyond humans ; spirits with the ability to influence human affairs ; entities often depicted as invisible or shape-shifting in various cultural traditions
2. Invisible or shape-shifting spirits that possess free will and can affect human experiences ; supernatural creatures from folklore capable of influencing reality ; entities endowed with special powers often regarded as both benevolent and malevolent
3. Supernatural creatures considered to have powers and free will similar to humans ; beings from mythology that can alter human destiny or perception ; often portrayed as ethereal or shape-shifting spirits in traditional lore

Etymology: "Jins" is a nonstandard spelling of "jinns," the English plural of "jinn," and the plural is itself a borrowing. In Arabic, "jinn" (from the root j-n-n, "to conceal" or "to hide") names beings that live unseen beside humans, and the English plural adds an "s" to a noun that was already plural in Arabic. The English singular "jinnee" came into use in the 1700s, and "genie" is a shortened form of it. The route ran through French: the French translator Antoine Galland rendered Arabic "jinnī" as "génie" in his early eighteenth-century version of "The Arabian Nights", and English readers took the French form. "Genie" is therefore a distant relative of "genius," which comes from Latin "genius," a guiding spirit. The two words share a French spelling, but the Latin and Arabic sources are unrelated.

Synonyms: djinns, genies, spirits