Jinx

How to spell jinx

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jinx

What does jinx mean?

1. nounA person, thing, or influence thought to bring bad luck.
2. verbTo bring bad luck to someone or something, especially by speaking too confidently.

Jinx in a sentence

• noun

  Everyone joked that the new printer was a jinx because it broke on its first day.

• verb

  Do not jinx the deal by celebrating before the contract is signed.

• noun

  She refused to mention the winning streak for fear of putting a jinx on the team.

• verb

  He worried that talking about the smooth flight would jinx the rest of the journey.

Where does jinx come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Jinx surfaced in American English around 1910, originally as baseball slang for a person or thing that brings bad luck. It is widely traced back to jynx, an old word for the wryneck, a small bird that was tied to a wheel and spun in ancient Greek and later European folk magic to cast love charms and spells. That bird name comes from the Greek iynx, which referred both to the wryneck and to the magic charm itself. The unusual spelling, with its blunt j at the front and the x doing the work of cks at the end, preserves that exotic origin rather than the way the word actually sounds. Because the x stands in for a ks sound, writers sometimes reach for jinks, which is a different word entirely.

How the word is built

• jinx (single root; possibly from Greek iynx, the wryneck bird used in charms)