Voldemort
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]After the evil wizard Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, coined by author J. K. Rowling as a compound of French vol de mort (“flight/theft from death”).[1] The verb sense derives from the fact that in the story, many characters refuse to call Voldemort by his proper name, calling him by euphemisms such as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "You-Know-Who". This may be due to Voldemort magically enforcing a ban on his name being spoken.
Noun
[edit]Voldemort (plural Voldemorts)
- An evil, harmful, or widely feared person or thing.
- 2013, Robert H. Lustig, Heather Millar, & Cindy Gershen, The Fat Chance Cookbook: More Than 100 Recipes Ready in Under 30 Minutes to Help You Lose the Sugar and the Weight[3], Hudson Street Press, published 2013, →ISBN:
- Fructose is the Voldemort of the metabolic syndrome pandemic: stealthy, ever-present, and bad for the common good.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Voldemort.
Derived terms
[edit]terms derived from Voldemort
Verb
[edit]Voldemort (third-person singular simple present Voldemorts, present participle Voldemorting, simple past and past participle Voldemorted)
- (transitive) To avoid naming someone or something directly; to use circumlocution.
- 2018 August, Emily van der Nagel, “‘Networks that work too well’: intervening in algorithmic connections”, in Media International Australia, volume 168, number 1, , →ISSN, page 88:
- PhD candidate and attendee NatalieZed (2015a, 2015b) instead Voldemorted the hashtag by using #Deatheaters – a term for Voldemort’s supporters, also from the Harry Potter novels – to refer to Gamergate harassers: […]
- 2018, Elle Kennedy, The Chase, Elle Kennedy Inc., →ISBN:
- “We don't speak Daphne's name in this house,” Kaya explains to me. Jee-zus. One measly stomach pumping and poor Daphne gets Voldemorted? The Kappa Beta Nu chapter of Briar University is evidently a lot stricter than the Brown chapter.
- 2018 September 10, Gretchen McCulloch, “Welcome to Voldemorting, the Ultimate SEO Dis”, in Wired[4]:
- Voldemorting is the anti-SEO, the anti-keyword, and the anti-hashtag. It transforms your subject from a single mass into an ungraspable swarm.
References
[edit]- ^ "Lord Voldemort's many names and their meanings", WizardingWorld.com, 17 July 2019
Categories:
- English terms coined by J. K. Rowling
- English coinages
- English terms derived from French
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English eponyms
- English terms derived from Harry Potter
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