different between shapeshifter vs wendigo

English

Alternative forms

• shape-shifter

Etymology

shape +? shifter

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /??e?p??ft?/

Noun

shapeshifter (plural shapeshifters)

1. (fantasy, mythology) A creature capable of changing its appearance or form at will.
   • 2000: Glen Cook, Water Sleeps

     The shapeshifter Lisa Bowalk, unable to shed the guise of a black panther, had gone onto the plain as a prisoner but was not now to be found among the dead above or the Captured down below.

   • 2003: Michael Bathgate, The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore: Shapeshifters, Transformations and Duplicities

     Like the teller of shapeshifter stories—who conjures a shifting world of perceptions and expectations for his or her audience that is strikingly similar to the worlds created by the shapeshifter for its victims—the cultural practice of imagination...is an inherently shifty enterprise....

   • 2004: Devin Grayson, Smallville: City

     There have also been verified reports of fire-starters and ice-makers and a shapeshifter so powerful she was able to frame another Smallville citizen for a bank robbery!

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:shape-shifter.

Translations

Anagrams

• phase shifter

English

Etymology

From Ojibwe wiindigoo, from Proto-Algonquian *wi·nteko·wa (“owl; malevolent spirit, cannibalistic monster”). Compare Cree wihtikow, ?????? (iyhtikow, “greedy person; cannibal; giant man-eating monster”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?w?nd????/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?w?ndi?o?/
• Hyphenation: wen?di?go

Noun

wendigo (plural wendigo or wendigos or wendigoes)

1. (mythology) A malevolent and violent cannibal spirit found in Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, and Cree mythology, which is said to inhabit the body of a living person and possess him or her to commit murder.

   Synonyms: wetiko, wihtikow, witigo, (derived from Cree) witiko
2. Synonym of splake (“kind of hybrid fish”)

Alternative forms

• wiindigoo
• windago
• windiga
• windigo

Derived terms

• wendigo psychosis

Translations

Further reading

• wendigo on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “windigo”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Anagrams

• widgeon