Poltergeists

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Disruptive supernatural beings known for making noises, moving objects, and creating chaos, often described in ghostly folklore
2. Mischievous entities believed to interact physically with their surroundings, causing disturbances and surprising events in people’s lives
3. Spirits believed to produce loud noises and move items, generating disorder in places they haunt

Etymology: The plural form is simply the regular plural of "poltergeist," so the story lies in the single word. It was borrowed directly from German, where "Poltergeist" combines "poltern," meaning to make a racket or knock about noisily, with "Geist," meaning spirit or ghost. The German word thus describes a spirit whose defining trait is noise and disorder, a spirit that rattles doors and hurls objects rather than one that simply haunts. The first half comes from a verb of imitative origin, and the second half is the same root that gives English "ghost," which is a cognate of "Geist." English speakers kept the German spelling and capitalisation-free form largely unchanged, which is why the word still looks foreign on the page. Its sound and sense therefore travelled together: a German noise-making ghost arrived in English with its racket intact.

Synonyms: ghosts, spirits, hauntings, specters, phantoms