Etymology

mogwai

M3O1G2W4A1I1

Today it means: A kind of demon held to be harmful to humans. Full definition →

Cantonese 魔怪
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Cantonese · borrowed from魔怪
  2. English todaymogwai

From Cantonese 魔怪 (mo1 gwaai3), 魔鬼 (mo1 gwai2).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.