I'm listening to some Harry Potter audio books, and there are so many words describing the work of the spell. One can be cursed, charmed, hexed or jinxed. What's the difference?
Learn English – Hex, curse, spell, jinx, charm
differencesword-choice
differencesword-choice
I'm listening to some Harry Potter audio books, and there are so many words describing the work of the spell. One can be cursed, charmed, hexed or jinxed. What's the difference?
Best Answer
Here are the etymologies from most recent words to older (from etymonline.com). I recommend reading them as these words these days might have lost much of their delineation - today we label them under one category and often use them interchangeably.
In the actual meaning and use, they can all be used as verbs.
Jinx, hex and curse can have exactly the same meaning and it is negative; while charm is ambiguous: it can refer to both positive and negative.
The older words curse and charm have developed other, common meanings, to swear and to attract, respectively, while the younger words have only meanings related to magic and mysticism.