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mojo

Did you mean: mojo, MOJO (Marine lingo), Mojo Shopping Inc, The Electrifying Mojo (Electronica Artist, '80s), Mojo!, MoJo, Mojo (abbreviation), Mojo (magazine), Mojo (comics) More...

 
Dictionary: mo·jo   ('') pronunciation
n., pl., -jos, or -joes.
  1. A magic charm or spell.
  2. An amulet, often a small flannel bag containing one or more magic items, worn by adherents of hoodoo or voodoo.
  3. Personal magnetism; charm.

[Perhaps ultimately from Fula moco'o, medicine man.]


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Word Origins: mojo
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from Fula
This word originated in Cameroon

If your mojo is working, you lead a charmed life. That's because mojo, in its original sense, is a charm, kept in a cloth bag. Depending on which conjure doctor you go to, the charm can be roots, rats, snakes, lizards, pumpkin seeds, dirt, clay, or steel wool. Those were ingredients mentioned in North Carolina in 1962. Back in the late 1930s, in Memphis, Tennessee, to make a mojo one expert said you would sew a red flannel bag with these ingredients: High John de Conker (a plant known also as Solomon's seal), black lodestone, Adam and Eve root, and violet incense powders. A 1946 account from New Orleans said that the mojo was "the leg bone of a black cat that's been killed in a graveyard at midnight."

If your mojo is working, you have sex appeal. But if someone else touches or even sees your mojo, it can lose its power. That's the explanation of the lyrics in the 1928 blues song: "My rider's got a mojo and she won't let me see.... She's got to fool her daddy, she's got to keep that mojo hid; but papa's got something for to find that mojo with." Written evidence for the word goes back to 1926 in the song title, "My Daddy's Got the Mojo, But I Got The Say-So." Nowadays the word is widely used, often with no reference to a magical cloth bag but simply meaning power, influence, or advantage.

The word is African American. Its origin is uncertain, but it seems probable that mojo ultimately came from Africa. If it did, a good candidate for the source is moco'o, meaning a conjure doctor or person who works magic. That word is from the Fula or Fulfulde language, a member of the Fulani branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Fula is spoken as a native language by two-thirds of a million people in Cameroon, and by four million more in Cameroon as a second language. One other English word that may possibly come from Fula (if not from Mandingo) is yam (1657).



WordNet: mojo
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a magic power or magic spell


Wikipedia: Mojo
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Mojo refers to a magical charm bag used in hoodoo. In modern usage it may also metaphorically refer to possessing a "magic touch" of creativity or charm.

In media and entertainment:

  • Mojo, Homer Simpson's helper monkey in an episode of The Simpsons
  • Mojo Jojo, a fictional supervillain in The Powerpuff Girls
  • Mojo (comics), a fictional supervillain in various Marvel Comics publications
  • Mojo, a character in the video game Chrono Cross
  • Mojo!, a video game similar in gameplay to Marble Madness
  • Mojo (dog), a dog in the video game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  • Mojo (play), a play by Jez Butterworth
    • Mojo (film), a film based on the play
  • MOJO HD, an American high-definition television network formerly known as INHD
  • Mojo: Conjure Stories, an anthology edited by Nalo Hopkinson
  • Mojo (magazine), a British music magazine
  • MoJo, abbreviation for Mother Jones, a progressive magazine
  • Box Office Mojo, a website detailing motion picture box-office totals
  • MojoWorld, a computer software package used in 3D computer graphics
  • Mojo Rules System (RPG), a generic multi-genre RPG rules system presented since 2004 in sections in of Polymancer magazine
  • Mojo (mobile journalist), reporters who spend their time in the field and send their stories electronically
  • Mojo, the sexual charm of Austin Powers

In music:

In nicknames:

In other uses:

  • Mojo Mendiola, philologist and artist
  • MOJO, abbreviation for Miscarriages of Justice Organisation, a charity dedicated to fighting miscarriages of justice
  • Mojo Press, a publisher of books and graphic novels
  • Mojo Coffee Cartel, a New Zealand cafe franchise
  • Mojo, Ethiopia, a railway town near Addis Ababa
  • Mojo SDK, the software development kit used to develop applications for the Palm webOS operating system
  • Mojo (sauce), a name of various sauces used in the Canary Islands and the Caribbean
  • Mojo (software), a ratings system used in the Scoop collaborative media application used by Kuro5hin
  • Mojo (hardware), an analog/digital breakout box from Avid Technology

See also

Mojo filter (In the Beatle's "Come Together" apparently is Scouse (Liverpudlian) for methylated spirits


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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Word Origins. The World in So Many Words, by Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mojo" Read more

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