banshee

• banshie (dated)
• benshee (obsolete)

Borrowed from Irish bean sí, from Old Irish ben síde (literally “woman of the fairy mound”). The term banshee entered English in 1771.

• IPA^(key): /bænˈʃiː/, /ˈbænʃiː/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iː

banshee (plural banshees)

1. (Scotland, Ireland, folklore) A female spirit, usually taking the form of a woman whose mournful wailing warns of an impending death.
   • 1810, The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott, 3.VII:

     Late had he heard, in prophet's dream, / The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream […] .

2. (derogatory) A noisy or ill-tempered woman.
   • 1936, John Thomas McIntyre, Steps Going Down, page 15:

     Where's this old banshee that runs the place?

• A banshee was originally merely a fairy woman who sang a caoineadh (lament) for recently-deceased members of certain families. Translations of Irish works into English made a distinction between the banshee and other fairy folk that the original language and original stories do not seem to have, but from which sprung the current image of the banshee.

• sidhe

• Joseph Wright, editor (1898), “BANSHEE, sb..”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume I (A–C), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 158.

• has-been, shabeen, shebean

banshee f (plural banshees)

1. (Irish mythology) banshee (a female spirit who warns of impending death)

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic bean-shìdh or Irish ben síde.

banshee

1. banshee

• “banshee, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 12 June 2024, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.