apotropaic

comparative more apotropaic · superlative most apotropaic

1. human sciencesIntended to ward off evil.First known use 1883

   A boring subtext, about the wisdom or otherwise of actually uttering Voldemort's name, meanwhile robs the apotropaic device of its force.

   2007 August 12, Christopher Hitchens, “Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived”, in New York Times

   3 more examples

   Wormwood [...] was associated with the rites of St. John's Eve, when a crown of the plant was made from its sprays for apotropaic purposes, to ward of malefic spirits.

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 1

   In earlier generations scholars reacted by removing many of these objects from public view, putting them in the ‘Secret Cabinet’ of the museum at Naples or otherwise under wraps. […] More recently the fashion has been to deflect attention from their sexuality by referring to them as ‘magical’, ‘apotropaic’ or ‘averters of the evil eye’.

   2010, Mary Beard, chapter 7, in Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town

   Commonly known as ‘ritual protection marks’, or even ‘witch marks’, an apotropaic image or symbol is a marking that is thought to create a ‘protection’ for the individual that created it – or for the area or object into which it was inscribed.

   2015, Matthew Champion, Medieval Graffiti: The Lost Voices of England’s Churches, London: Ebury Press, →ISBN, page 25

plural apotropaics

1. An agent intended to ward off evil.

   Synonyms: apotropaion