Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Caribbean folklore A night witch who sucks people's blood, sheds her skin, and can turn herself into a ball of fire and fly.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From West Indies Creole.

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Examples

  • According to reports, the public servant claimed that the elderly woman is a 'soucouyant' or witch and this is why she did not want to pass on her left side...

    Archive 2009-06-01 Christopher 2009

  • According to reports, the public servant claimed that the elderly woman is a 'soucouyant' or witch and this is why she did not want to pass on her left side...

    Rival 'Witches' Go Head To Head On Street? Christopher 2009

  • And that's when the normalcy of the everyday world spins into the mystery of the demonic past, and the thoroughly modern Fentons make the terrifying acquaintance of a soucouyant, an evil spirit disguised by day as a gruesome crone who strips off her skin at night and assumes the form of a fireball to penetrate random victims' homes in search of blood or a baby she can sacrifice.

    Elizabeth Abbott: The Skin Will Make You Jump Out of Yours! Elizabeth Abbott 2011

  • And that's when the normalcy of the everyday world spins into the mystery of the demonic past, and the thoroughly modern Fentons make the terrifying acquaintance of a soucouyant, an evil spirit disguised by day as a gruesome crone who strips off her skin at night and assumes the form of a fireball to penetrate random victims' homes in search of blood or a baby she can sacrifice.

    Elizabeth Abbott: The Skin Will Make You Jump Out of Yours! Elizabeth Abbott 2011

  • 'My parents used to put all the children in the village to sit down on benches and tell us about soucouyant and lagahoo.'

    TrinidadExpress Today's News 2010

  • 'My parents used to put all the children in the village to sit down on benches and tell us about soucouyant and lagahoo.'

    TrinidadExpress Today's News 2010

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  • "As if the spectres with which he paid for his passage to England, the soucouyants with which he revenged his uncle and family, all those bloodthirsty ghosts of his narrative have come alive in this city."

    The Thing about Thugs by Tabish Khair, p 191

    December 24, 2012