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''veve'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260227140228-00-⌔

veve - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

veve (plural veves)

  • (voodoo) Any of various symbols, like line diagrams, that have religious significance in voodoo, serving as a representation of the loa. [from 20th c.]
    • ✤ The vever, as a cabbala-like method of invoking the gods, was included as a primary ceremonial device in Rada.1
    • ✤ The vèvè for Simbi, lord of healing, bristles with all sorts of allusions to the Kongo medicines of God, leaves, horns, water, and stars.2
    • ✤ The indigenous practice of sand painting was preserved in the practice of creating vévés, intricate drawings in cornmeal that were used to call various spirits.3

Etymology

From Haitian Creole vèvè, from Portuguese viver (“to live”).

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1953, Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen, McPherson & Company, published 2004, page 69: ↩

  2. 1995, Robert Farris Thompson, in Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, South Sea International Press 1998, p. 103: ↩

  3. 2007, Kevin Filan, The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Destiny Books, page 15: ↩

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