dybbuk
/ˈdɪbʊk/
dybbuk noun: a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person.
Noun
dybbuk (plural dybbuks or dybbukim)
- A malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person.
- And who am I? A dybbuk—a demon of all shapes and no shape. My profession is forced entry into the minds of mortals; my speciality is Jews.1993, Ellen Galford, The Dyke and the Dybbuk, Seal Press, →ISBN, page 6
- The Great Freddie stood up. “I'm glad that our paths crossed again. I want to help you. But I don't want to be possessed by a Jewish dybbuk. When I was growing up, I never saw a Jew. I thought they all wore horns and had tails.”
- Said the dybbuk, “What do you know? In the shtetl where I grew up, the muddy village, we thought all Christians had tails and horns. And the Nazi soldiers carried pitchforks.”2008, Sid Fleischman, The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, New York, NY: Greenwillow Books, →ISBN, page 24
Forms of dybbuk
| plural | dybbuks |
|---|---|
| plural | dybbukim |
| alternative form | dibbuk |
Origin of dybbuk
From Yiddish דיבוק (dibek), from Hebrew דבק (dovek, “cling”).
Questions about dybbuk
- What does dybbuk mean?
- Dybbuk means a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person.
- What part of speech is dybbuk?
- Dybbuk is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dybbuk?
- Dybbuk is pronounced /ˈdɪbʊk/.
- What is the plural of dybbuk?
- The plural of dybbuk is dybbuks.
Words near dybbuk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dybbuk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dybbuk.wav.
Cite this entry: “dybbuk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dybbuk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.