shaman
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: shamán
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Etymology
Borrowed from German Schamane,[1] from Russian шама́н (šamán),[1] from Evenki шама̄н (şamān), сама̄н (samān).[2] The Evenki word is possibly derived from the root ша- ("to know");[3] or else a loanword from Tocharian B ṣamāne (“monk”)[4] or Chinese 沙門 / 沙门 (shāmén, “Buddhist monk”), from Pali samaṇa from Sanskrit श्रमण (śramaṇa, “ascetic, monk, devotee”), from श्रम (śrama, “weariness, exhaustion; labor, toil; etc.”), which would make this a doublet of sramana.[4]
Pronunciation
Noun
shaman (plural shamans)
- A traditional faith healer.
- Synonym: witch doctor
- A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a spiritual or religious medium between the concrete and spirit worlds; sometimes also a healer.
- Hyponym: wu (Chinese shaman)
- Near-synonyms: medicine man, medicine woman, priest-doctor, witch doctor
- 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Tuchanka:
- Shepard: What rites did you go through to become chief shaman?
Shaman: Becoming the shaman is excruciating. I passed through rites that made me wish to die. I carry the scars on my soul.
Shaman: I must perform rites each dawn and dusk to keep me bound into our krogan nature. Our spirit is one of violence and death. I must be attuned to that.
Usage notes
Derived terms
Translations
spiritual or religious medium between the concrete and spirit worlds
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References
- “shaman”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “shaman”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- Mihály, Hoppál. Sámánok Eurázsiában (Budapest: Akadémiai K., 2005), 15
- Fortson, Benjamin W. (2010) Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, second edition, Oxford: Blackwell
- “shaman, n. (and a.)” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
- 1978, Carl B. Compton, The Interamerican, volume 25, №3 (Instituto Interamericano, Denton, Texas) We learn from our readers: We have been wrong in writing the word “shamen” as a plural for “shaman”. The word probably comes from Russian and there is no plural except that made by adding an ‘s’ — e.g. Shamans.
- 2003, Howard Isaac Aronson, Dee Ann Holisky, and Kevin Tuite, Current Trends in Caucasian, East European, and Inner Asian Linguistics — “Dialect Continua in Tungusic: Plural Morphology”, page 103 (John Benjamin’s Publishing Company; →ISBN […] we note here that -sal tends to exist only as a residual plural marker in -l/-r dialects. For example, in Standard Evenki, as in the Evenki dialects of the Amur basin and the Vivin dialect, use of -sal is limited to a small number of nouns (e.g. bajan “rich person”, pl. bajasal; ɲami:, “female reindeer”, pl. ɲami:sal or ɲami:səl; aβlan “field”, pl. aβlasal; sama:n “shaman”, pl. sama:sal).
Anagrams
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