jinx

A jinx (also jynx), in popular superstition and folklore, is a curse or the attribute of attracting bad or negative luck.

== Etymology == The Online Etymology Dictionary states that jynx, meaning a charm or spell, was in usage in English as early as the 1690s. The same source states that "jinx", with that specific spelling, is first attested in American English in 1911. Jynx/jinx is traced to the 17th-century word jyng, meaning "a spell", and ultimately to the Latin word iynx, also spelled jynx, as 'j' and 'i' are the same letter in Latin. The Latin iynx came from the Greek name of the wryneck, iunx, associated with sorcery; not only was the bird used in the casting of spells and in divination, but the Ancient Romans and Greeks traced the bird's mythological origins to a sorceress named Iynx, who was transformed into this bird to punish her for a spell cast on the god Zeus.