gris-gris
gris-gris noun: an African, or Afro-American, charm or talisman.
Noun
gris-gris (plural gris-gris)
- An African, or Afro-American, charm or talisman.
- A horn, or rude image, is sometimes made use of as a means of preserving the medicines of defense, and is worn as an amulet. These images, horns, or other articles, called greegrees, or jeujeus, are not held sacred for a moment after the medicine is found to have lost its power […].1865, David Livingstone, Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries
- The Bambara were not Muslim, but they knew how to make gris-gris.2008, Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans, Lawrence Hill Books, published 2009, page 61
Forms of gris-gris
| plural | gris-gris |
|---|---|
| alternative form | greegree |
| alternative form | gri-gri |
| alternative form | grigri |
| alternative form | grisgris |
Origin of gris-gris
Unknown. Compare juju (“a fetish or charm”); compare also Mande gerregery or Mandingo gregory, an amulet or curse-object.
Questions about gris-gris
- What does gris-gris mean?
- Gris-gris means an African, or Afro-American, charm or talisman.
- What part of speech is gris-gris?
- Gris-gris is a noun.
- What is the plural of gris-gris?
- The plural of gris-gris is gris-gris.
Words near gris-gris in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gris-gris (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.
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Cite this entry: “gris-gris.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gris-gris. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.