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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
banshee
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He turned back just in time to see something large and black roaring at him like a banshee.
▪ One little girl dropped her ice-cream in the excitement of it all and began to howl like a banshee.
▪ Onstage, we rock out like wild banshees from hell.
▪ Screeching like a banshee, she was.
▪ The train was still inside the tunnel, the wind howling like a mad banshee through the open windows.
▪ When she makes love she screams like a banshee, and things are inclined to get knocked over.
▪ With their banshee wails, squalling guitars and naked aggression, they are baring their souls and they are angry.
▪ You were drunk and howling it out like a banshee.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Banshee

Banshee \Ban"shee\, Banshie \Ban"shie\, n. [Gael. bean-shith fairy; Gael. & Ir. bean woman + Gael. sith fairy.] (Celtic Folklore) A supernatural being supposed to warn a family of the approaching death of one of its members, by wailing or singing in a mournful voice, as under the windows of the house.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
banshee

1771, from phonetic spelling of Irish bean sidhe "female of the Elves," from bean "woman" (from PIE *gwen-; see queen) + sidhe, from sith "fairy" or sid "fairy mound." Specifically, one who calls to the spirits of the dead. Sidhe sometimes is confused with sithe, genitive of sith "peace."

Wiktionary
banshee

n. 1 In Irish folklore, a female spirit, usually taking the form of a woman whose mournful wailing warns of an impending death. 2 (context derogatory English) A noisy or ill-tempered woman.

WordNet
banshee

n. (Irish folklore) a female spirit who wails to warn of impending death

Wikipedia
Banshee

A banshee ( , Modern Irish bean sí, from , , "woman of the mounds") is a female spirit in Irish mythology who heralds the death of a member of one of the prominent Gaelic families, usually by shrieking or keening. Her name is connected to the mythologically-important tumuli or "mounds" that dot the Irish countryside, which are known as síde (singular síd) in Old Irish. A well known character Lydia Martin, is a banshee on a popular show named Teen Wolf (2011 TV series)

Banshee (comics)

Banshee (Sean Cassidy) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Werner Roth, the character first appeared in X-Men #28 (January 1967).

An Irish mutant, Banshee possesses a "sonic scream", capable of harming enemies’ auditory systems and causing physical vibrations. He is named after the banshee, a legendary ghost from Irish mythology, said to possess a powerful cry.

A former Interpol agent and NYPD police officer, Banshee was always a decade older than most of the X-Men and had only a relatively short tenure as a full-time X-Man. He was a mentor of the 1990s-era junior team Generation X. Caleb Landry Jones played the role of Banshee in 2011's X-Men: First Class.

Banshee (disambiguation)

In Irish and Scottish mythology, the banshee is a "fairy woman" whose mournful wail heralds an imminent death.

Banshee may also refer to:

Banshee (media player)

Banshee is a cross-platform open-source media player, called Sonance until 2005. Built upon Mono and Gtk#, it uses the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding and decoding various media formats, including Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and FLAC. Banshee can play and import audio CDs and supports many portable media players, including Apple's iPod, Android devices and Creative's ZEN players. Other features include Last.fm integration, album artwork fetching, smart playlists and podcast support. Banshee is released under the terms of the MIT License. Stable versions are available for many Linux distributions, as well as a beta preview for OS X and an alpha preview for Windows.

Banshee uses the SQLite database library.

Banshee (video game)

Banshee is a vertically scrolling 2D shoot 'em up computer game that was released on Amiga 1200 and Amiga CD32 in 1994 by Core Design. The game was ranked the 39th best game of all time by Amiga Power in 1996.

Banshee (band)

Banshee is a metal band that was formed in 1986 in the American Midwest. Although they shared the image and sound with the glam/metal scene of the 80s, their music fully shares the elements of melodic power metal: catchy guitar riffs, eclectic drums and bass, powerful guitar solos, and intense vocals.

Banshee (roller coaster)

Banshee is a steel roller coaster located at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. Designed and built by Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M), Banshee opened on April 18, 2014. The roller coaster features of track making it the longest inverted roller coaster. Banshee is also the first inverted coaster built in the United States since the Patriot debuted at Worlds of Fun in 2006.

Banshee (film)

Banshee is a 2006 American drama film directed by Kari Skogland, starring Taryn Manning. Following its TV premiere it had a DVD release in several countries.

Banshee (dinghy)

The Banshee is a 120-pound, cat-rigged one-design sailing dinghy with of sail. The boat was designed by Richard Reid in 1969. Its Portsmouth yardstick is 93.7 (2008).

Richard Reid had been building Flying Juniors which had been winning races. The Sunfish was out, and Richard thought that there was room for a more substantial mass-market sailing dinghy.

He was a retailer in Foster City, CA. He used the hull shape of the Flying Junior as his model, making a few minor modifications. The first fleets were in Foster City and at the San Jose Sailing Club. These boats were built by Richard Reid himself (his company was known as Marine Plastics.) He began to subcontract construction to Merrysville and Santa Cruz.

Barry Bruch raised venture capital to establish Banshee International, which took over production of the boats (with Richard Reid as VP). They built boats in Santa Cruz (from 1974) and Scotts Valley (from 1982).

An experimental variant, the Griffon, was built by Banshee International. It used very lightweight materials (e.g. carbon fiber), had the same deck, and basically the same hull (with some minor modifications - for example a slightly fuller bow). It weighed 80 lbs! Fifteen were made.

Abbott Boats of Ontario, Canada was licensed to make 500 boats. It isn't known how many they made, or what became of the molds.

The Banshee is a very fast boat. It has over 90 square feet of sail and is much more comfortable to sail than a Laser. There are no basic rigging restrictions. The Banshee cockpit stays dry if you capsize, while also being easy to handle. It is one of the best performing single handed dinghys ever designed. The Banshee weighs in at only 120 pounds so it makes it easy put on a car, trailer, and launch. If you just want to go sail for the day, two adults can easily fit or one adult and a couple of kids.

Banshee (short story)

Banshee is an autobiographical short story written by Ray Bradbury in the September 1984 issue of Gallery, and later adapted by Bradbury as an episode of Ray Bradbury Theater. The story is based on Bradbury's experiences with John Huston during pre-production of their film Moby Dick, directed by Huston and adapted into a screenplay by Bradbury from Herman Melville's novel.

Bradbury and Huston had a very unpleasant working relationship whenever Bradbury would visit Huston's house in Ireland, where Huston would routinely manipulate and torment Bradbury with insults, pranks, and attempts to frighten the young author with impromptu ghost stories.

In "Banshee", director John Hampton and writer Douglas Rogers share an identical relationship. However, Bradbury puts a supernatural twist into the story by making one of John's ghostly tales true; unbeknownst to John, his property in the Irish country-side really is haunted by a banshee, a wailing female spirit. Despite his fear, Doug converses with the ghost, who has mistaken John for William, a former resident of the house who was her unfaithful lover when she was alive. Angered by John's cruel behavior earlier in the evening, Doug returns to the house and goads John into venturing into the night to meet the banshee, knowing that she intends to kill John/ William. At the last minute, Doug has second thoughts and unsuccessfully tries to convince John not to meet the banshee; however, John goes outside to confront her anyway.

The television adaptation stars Charles Martin Smith as Doug (the Bradbury character) and Peter O'Toole as John (the character based on Huston).

Banshee (TV series)

Banshee is an American action television series created by Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler originally appearing on the Cinemax network beginning on January 11, 2013. Set in the small town of Banshee in Pennsylvania Amish country, the series' main character is an enigmatic ex-con ( Antony Starr), who assumes the identity of Lucas Hood, the town's murdered sheriff, to hide from powerful crime lord Rabbit ( Ben Cross). Imposing his own brand of justice, Hood attempts to reconcile with his former lover, Rabbit's daughter, Anastasia ( Ivana Miličević), who has herself adopted an assumed identity, married, and raised a family during Hood's incarceration. Hood struggles to maintain his new identity while still embracing crime alongside his partners Job ( Hoon Lee) and Sugar ( Frankie Faison), and coming into conflict with local kingpin Kai Proctor ( Ulrich Thomsen).

The series was developed as part of Cinemax's drive to develop original content. A 10-episode second season debuted in January 2014. Banshee was renewed for a third season that same month, which debuted in January 2015. In February 2015, the series was renewed for an 8-episode fourth and final season. The final episode aired on May 20, 2016.

Banshee (The Cave Singers album)

Banshee is the fifth studio album by American band The Cave Singers. It was released in February 2016 under Jagjaguwar.

Usage examples of "banshee".

Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom harpers!

He struck out wildly, shoving at die sand, trying desperately to keep from being buried, from disappearing beneath it forever, trapped and held by Banshee herself, fop her children the ants and more sand fell on him and around him and the ground trembled with a terrible sense of fragility and then it was over.

She must remember that the same Force which created the dogs and horses she loved, and the beloved hawks, had created the banshee for its own purposes, even if she did not know what they were.

She had the power, and perhaps the right, to force her will on the hawks she trained, on the horses she rode, even, to save her life, on the wild banshee of the crags.

It was no more than a nameless sand bar that a tiny forest had managed to capture, and its only inhabitants were the myriads of stupid muttonbirds that riddled the soft ground with their burrows and made the night hideous with their banshee cries.

A cook jettisoned a bucket of slops over the side and gulls, screaming like banshees, swooped from the air between the yards to fight over the scraps.

Lucy, in fancy new togs as well, cried like a banshee during the ceremony.

Marine who had come to K-22 with his photo Banshee and he wanted desperately to see Altair come rising from the sea, his star, his omen to bless this night.

They brought me, and Loki and Thor, Anansi and the Lion-God, Leprechauns and Kobolds and Banshees, Kubera and Frau Holle and Ashtaroth, and they brought you.

Jaelle was careful not to be caught above the treeline after dark, but at night, cuddled in their doubled sleeping bags for warmth, Magda shivered at the savage shrilling cry of banshees in the frozen passes, a cry which could, she remembered, paralyze any prey within range.

And she knew which route they were taking because she heard Rafi talking about the dangers from banshees in the pass.

I have always heard that road was impassable and haunted by monsters next to whom banshees are household pets.

If some lichen or other is in the wrong part of its life cycle, there is some kind of population crash among ice-rabbits, the she-rabbits are barren, and the banshees starve, so that they come down below the treeline and look for larger prey.

A good place for banshees, she thought dispassionately, looking out over the icy wastes below her, on either side of the ridge, but even they would have starved to death centuries ago.

Brubaker knew the guns would be waiting, for as the Banshees crossed the coastline, a signal battery in Wonsan fired and he could follow the course of other gun bursts across Korea, for the communists announced impending danger exactly as the Cheyennes of Colorado had done two hundred years before.