英和和英

別の表記

• banshie (archaic)
• benshee (obsolete)

語源

Borrowed from Irish bean sí, from Old Irish ben síde (literally “woman of the fairy mound”). The term banshee entered English in 1771.

発音

• IPA: /bænˈʃiː/, /ˈbænʃiː/
• 韻: -iː

名詞

banshee (plural banshees)

1. (Scotland, Ireland, folklore) A female spirit, usually taking the form of a woman whose mournful wailing warns of an impending death.
   • 1810, The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott, 3.VII:

     Late had he heard, in prophet's dream, / The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream […] .

2. (derogatory) A noisy or ill-tempered woman.
   • 1936, John Thomas McIntyre, Steps Going Down, page 15:

     Where's this old banshee that runs the place?

使用する際の注意点

• A banshee was originally merely a fairy woman who sang a keen (lament) for recently deceased members of certain families. Translations of Irish works into English made a distinction between the banshee and other fairy folk that the original language and original stories do not seem to have, but from which sprung the current image of the banshee.

派生語

派生した語

参考

• sidhe

参照

• Joseph Wright, editor (1898), “BANSHEE, sb..”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume I (A–C), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 158.

アナグラム

• has-been, shabeen, shebean