jumbie
/ˈdʒʌmbi/
jumbie noun: a ghost or evil spirit.
Noun
jumbie (plural jumbies)
- A ghost or evil spirit.
- If one wants to see “jumbies” “duppies” ghosts, all that is necessary is to put in your eye the tears from the eyes of a pie-bald horse. It is no use explaining to a negro that what he has taken to be a “jumbie” or apparition, is a tree or rock or other natural object.1882, G.H. Hawtayne, “Occasional notes: West Indian Folk-lore”, in Timehri: Being the Journal of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of British Guiana, volume 1, page 145
- Jethro stomped away up the hill, though the trail was supposed to be haunted by spirits of the dead called jumbies. He didn't care. He didn't believe in jumbies.1979, Susan Cooper, Jethro and the Jumbie, page 5
Forms of jumbie
| plural | jumbies |
|---|---|
| alternative form | jumbee |
| alternative form | jumby |
| alternative form | jumbi |
| alternative form | zumbi |
Origin of jumbie
Borrowed from Kongo zumbi (“fetish”). Doublet of zombie.
Words formed from jumbie
Phrases with jumbie
Questions about jumbie
- What does jumbie mean?
- Jumbie means a ghost or evil spirit.
- What part of speech is jumbie?
- Jumbie is a noun.
- How do you pronounce jumbie?
- Jumbie is pronounced /ˈdʒʌmbi/.
- What is the plural of jumbie?
- The plural of jumbie is jumbies.
Words near jumbie in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: jumbie (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-jumbie.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-jumbie.wav.
Cite this entry: “jumbie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jumbie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.