hoodoo

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
hoodoo/ˈhuːduː/

▶noun

• 1 voodoo.

• 2 bad luck.

  ■ a cause of bad luck.

• 3 chiefly N. Amer. a column or pinnacle of weathered rock.

▶verb (hoodoos, hoodooing, hoodooed) bewitch.

– origin C19 (orig. US, denoting a person practising voodoo): appar. an alt. of voodoo; sense 3 of the noun is appar. due to the strange forms of the columns.