Word.ws English Dictionary

houngan

/ˈ(h)uŋ.ɡən/

houngan noun: a (male) voodoo priest.

Noun

houngan (plural houngans)

  1. A (male) voodoo priest.
    • The shadow of the houngan, projected from within the tent by the flickering of the candle, dances and glides over the folds of the cloth as he completes his final preparations.1953, Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen, McPherson & Company, published 2004, page 48
    • By then, estimates of the number of oungans killed in 1986-87 had reached as high as 400.1995, Sidney Mintz & Michel-Rolph Trouillot, in Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, South Sea International Press 1998, page 147

houngan meaning in Bengali

houngan in Bengali

একজন ভুডু পুরোহিত

Examples of houngan in a sentence

  • From 1751 to 1758, Makandal, a one-armed former slave and houngan, staged a rebellion that claimed some six thousand lives.2007, Kevin Filan, The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Destiny Books, page 16:
  • Most voodoo priests, known as houngans, operate semi-independently, catering to their followers without much structure.2008 April 5, Marc Lacey, “A U.S.-Trained Entrepreneur Becomes Voodoo’s Pope”, in New York Times:

Forms of houngan

pluralhoungans
alternative formoungan

Origin of houngan

From Haitian Creole oungan, apparently from Fon houn (“spirit”) + Kongo nganga (“high priest”).

Questions about houngan

What does houngan mean?
Houngan means a (male) voodoo priest.
What is houngan in Bengali?
Houngan in Bengali is একজন ভুডু পুরোহিত. See Houngan meaning in Bengali.
How do you use houngan in a sentence?
From 1751 to 1758, Makandal, a one-armed former slave and houngan, staged a rebellion that claimed some six thousand lives.
What part of speech is houngan?
Houngan is a noun.
How do you pronounce houngan?
Houngan is pronounced /ˈ(h)uŋ.ɡən/.
What is the plural of houngan?
The plural of houngan is houngans.

Words near houngan in the dictionary

  1. houndstooth
  2. Houndwood
  3. houndy
  4. hounfour
  5. hounfours
  6. houngan
  7. houngans
  8. houngenikon
  9. houngenikons
  10. Hounsell
  11. Hounshell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: houngan (page history and authors); houngan (Bengali Wiktionary) (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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