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The word duende refers to a spirit in Spanish, Portuguese, and Filipino folklore and literally means "ghost" or "goblin" in Spanish. It is believed to derive from the phrase dueño de casa, which means "owner of a house." The term is traditionally used in flamenco music or other art forms to refer to the mystical or powerful force given off by a performer to draw in the audience. The Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca wrote in his essay "Teoria y Juego del Duende" ("Play and Theory of the Duende") that duende "is a power and not a behavior … a struggle and not a concept." Nowadays the term appears in a broader range of contexts to refer to one's unspoken charm or allure.
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Examples of duende in a Sentence
Alex Zaragoza, Los Angeles Times, 15 Sep. 2023
In some of its most memorable reporting, former host Maria Celeste Arrarás and the team of reporters shared stories of duendes lurking in trees in Central America, brujas voladoras captured on camera by a shaky camcorder, and UFO or alien sightings.
—Alex Zaragoza, Los Angeles Times, 15 Sep. 2023
May more absolute crackpots come forward with their petrified duendes and brujas voladoras.
—Alex Zaragoza, Los Angeles Times, 15 Sep. 2023
Charisma, class, and style all have something to do with duende.
—Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 3 Sep. 2021
The writer George Frazier spent a lifetime defining duende and identifying those who possessed it.
—Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 3 Sep. 2021
Which means that, for a dancer, duende is not only a mystical inspiration.
—Jennifer Homans, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2019
Krug is no Orr, because no one can recreate that time, that talent that duende, but the winning rush was of near-No.
—BostonGlobe.com, 23 Nov. 2019
Ronald Reagan brought his California movie-star wattage and conservative duende, and, like that, after a four-year interlude from the Nixonian nadir, the Republican party was seemingly resurrected and would run the table for the next 12 years.
—Michael Paterniti, GQ, 26 June 2018
Dictionary Entries Near duende
Cite this Entry
“Duende.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duende. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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