Soucouyant
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A night witch who sucks people's blood, sheds her skin, and can transform into a fireball and fly. Caribbean
"1986, Kenneth Ramchand, “Wayne Vincent Brown”, in Daryl Cumber Dance (ed.), Fifty Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, →ISBN, page 90, We can notice, for example, that “Vampire” combines the folkloric soucouyant (blood-sucking old woman in the shape of a ball of fire), a science fiction creature (“clammy, from its bed of hairs / And thirsty” [p. 24]), the moon again (Brown’s poems are obsessed by the moon); …"
Example
More examples"1986, Kenneth Ramchand, “Wayne Vincent Brown”, in Daryl Cumber Dance (ed.), Fifty Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, →ISBN, page 90, We can notice, for example, that “Vampire” combines the folkloric soucouyant (blood-sucking old woman in the shape of a ball of fire), a science fiction creature (“clammy, from its bed of hairs / And thirsty” [p. 24]), the moon again (Brown’s poems are obsessed by the moon); …"
Etymology
From West Indies Creole.
More for "soucouyant"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.