Word.ws English Dictionary

Voldemort

UK/ˈvəʊldəˌmɔː(t)/US/ˈvoʊldəˌmɔɹ(t)/

Voldemort noun: an evil, harmful, or widely feared person or thing.

voldemort: an evil, harmful, or widely feared person or thing
Image: Kevindooley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Voldemort (plural Voldemorts)

  1. An evil, harmful, or widely feared person or thing.
    • […] Oscar has been called the Voldemort of Fleet Street by both friends and enemies. He was apparently ruthless in all his business dealings.'2012, G. M. Malliet, A Fatal Winter, Constable & Robinson, published 2012, →ISBN
    • If you asked me to identify a Voldemort in the myth of “social media,” it would be these people, and not guys like Gary Vaynerchuk.2012, B. J. Mendelson, Social Media Is Bullshit, St. Martin's Press, published 2012, →ISBN

Verb

Voldemort (third-person singular simple present Voldemorts, present participle Voldemorting, simple past and past participle Voldemorted)

  1. (transitive) To avoid naming someone or something directly; to use circumlocution.
    • PhD candidate and attendee NatalieZed (2015a, 2015b) instead Voldemorted the hashtag by using #Deatheaters – a term for Voldemort’s supporters, also from the Harry Potter novels – to refer to Gamergate harassers: […]2018 August, Emily van der Nagel, “‘Networks that work too well’: intervening in algorithmic connections”, in Media International Australia, volume 168, number 1, →DOI, →ISSN, page 88
    • “We don't speak Daphne's name in this house,” Kaya explains to me. Jee-zus. One measly stomach pumping and poor Daphne gets Voldemorted? The Kappa Beta Nu chapter of Briar University is evidently a lot stricter than the Brown chapter.2018, Elle Kennedy, The Chase, Elle Kennedy Inc., →ISBN

Examples of Voldemort in a sentence

  • Fructose is the Voldemort of the metabolic syndrome pandemic: stealthy, ever-present, and bad for the common good.2013, Robert H. Lustig, Heather Millar, & Cindy Gershen, The Fat Chance Cookbook: More Than 100 Recipes Ready in Under 30 Minutes to Help...
  • Yet Voldemorting departs from the Harry Potter analogy in one crucial way.2018 September 10, Gretchen McCulloch, “Welcome to Voldemorting, the Ultimate SEO Dis”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2018:
  • You two Voldemorted the sexual tension between you.2021, Roni Loren, Yes & I Love You, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN:
  • Voldemorting is the tactic of not mentioning the name, keyword, hashtag or handle you are talking about because you don't want them to know you are talking about them.2021, Nicholas Carah, Media and Society: Power, Platforms, and Participation, SAGE, →ISBN:

Forms of Voldemort

Noun
pluralVoldemorts
Verb
third-person singular presentVoldemorts
present participleVoldemorting
past participleVoldemorted
pastVoldemorted

Origin of Voldemort

After the evil wizard Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, coined by author J. K. Rowling as a compound of French vol de mort (“a flight or theft from death”). Voldemort's birth name is Tom Marvolo Riddle; an anagram of it is "I am Lord Voldemort". The verb sense comes from the fact that in the story, many characters refuse to call Voldemort by his proper name, calling him euphemisms such as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "You-Know-Who", because Voldemort puts a spell on his own name that alerts him when others speak it.

Words formed from Voldemort

Phrases with Voldemort

Questions about Voldemort

What does Voldemort mean?
Voldemort means an evil, harmful, or widely feared person or thing.
How do you use Voldemort in a sentence?
Fructose is the Voldemort of the metabolic syndrome pandemic: stealthy, ever-present, and bad for the common good.
What part of speech is Voldemort?
Voldemort can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce Voldemort?
Voldemort is pronounced /ˈvəʊldəˌmɔː(t)/ (UK).
What is the plural of Voldemort?
The plural of Voldemort is Voldemorts.

Words near Voldemort in the dictionary

  1. Volcy
  2. Volcys
  3. Volcán
  4. Vold
  5. Volda
  6. Voldemort
  7. Voldemort type
  8. Voldemort types
  9. Voldemort-esque
  10. Voldemorted
  11. Voldemortesque

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Voldemort (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:

Cite this entry: “Voldemort.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/voldemort. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.