loa

plural loas · alternative lwa

1. In the voodoo religion, a spirit intermediary between Bondye (the creator god) and human beings.

   Here, on the Island Below the Sea, the loa have their permanent residence, their primal location.

   1953, Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen, McPherson & Company, published 2004, page 36

   2 more examples

   Some will caution you at great length about the dangers of Vodou. They will tell you that the lwa are jealous, thin-skinned, and hot-tempered.

   2007, Kevin Filan, The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Destiny Books, page 3

   Equally surprising is to find St Patrick so prominent in many Vodou shrines, until one remembers that he too had been a slave who had twice crossed the sea, the second time to freedom, and that he had particular power over snakes, like the loa (Haitian equivalent of orisha) Dambala Wèdo.

   2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 714

plural LOAs

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of leave of absence.
2. USabbreviationinitialismlettergovernmentInitialism of letter of appreciation.
3. abbreviationinitialismnauticalInitialism of length over all, the length of a ship's hull without attachments.

   But in the end, nothing says as much about a yacht, or its owner, as the delicate matter of L.O.A.—length over all.

   2022 July 18, Evan Osnos, “The Haves and the Have-Yachts”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN, archived from the original on 30 Jul 2022

4. New AgeabbreviationinitialismInitialism of law of attraction.

plural Loas

1. countableuncountableA surname.
2. countableuncountableA town, the county seat of Wayne County, Utah, United States.