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A jinx, in popular superstition and folklore, is: It is also: The etymology of the word is obscure. It may come from Latin Iynx, that is, the wryneck bird, which has occasionally been used in magic and divination and is remarkable for its ability to twist its head almost 180 degrees while hissing like a snake. The Jinx bird is found in Africa and Eurasia. The earliest use of the word "jinx" to refer to something other than the bird seems to have been in the context of baseball; in Pitching at a Pinch (1910), Christy Mathewson explained that "a jinx is something which brings bad luck to a ball player." Barry Popik of the American Dialect Society suggests that the word should be traced back to an American folksong called Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, which was first popular in 1868. One verse in one version goes: The first day I went out to drill The bugle sound made me quite ill, At the Balance step my hat it fell, And that wouldn't do for the Army. The officers they all did shout, They all cried out, they all did shout, The officers they all did shout, "Oh, that's the curse of the Army." The reference to various misfortunes and a curse lend plausibility to this explanation. The Online Etymology Dictionary entry for jinx states that the word was first used, as a noun, in American English in 1911. It traces it to a 17th century word jyng, meaning "a spell", and ultimately to the Latin word iynx*. African American blues songs make many mentions of jinxes, far more than are found in Anglo-American usage. As in earlier sports references, it may be spelled jinks", and some blues singers treat the word as a plural ("these jinks"):
The character of Joe Btfsplk, from Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip, was a jinx. His curse was symbolized by a small dark cloud that hovered above his head.
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