| Definitions | | banshee |
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noun
- In Irish folklore, a female spirit, usually taking the form of a woman whose mournful wailing warns of an impending death. Originally a fairy woman singing a caoin, caoineadh (lament) for recently-deceased members of the O'Grady, the O'Neill, the O'Brien, the O'Connor, and the Kavanagh families, translations into English made a distinction between the banshee and other fairy folk that the original language and original stories do not seem to have, and thus the current image of the banshee.
Etymology: From beanIrish, bean sídhe, from (OIr.) ben síde, literally "woman of the fairy mound". The term banshee entered English in 1771.
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Full Definition of banshee
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