veve

• vévé, vèvè, vever

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

veve (plural veves)

1. (voodoo) any of various symbols, like line diagrams, that have religious significance in voodoo, serving as a representation of the loa [from 20th c.]
   • 1953, Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen, McPherson & Company 2004, p. 69:

     The vever, as a cabbala-like method of invoking the gods, was included as a primary ceremonial device in Rada.

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

     The vèvè for Simbi, lord of healing, bristles with all sorts of allusions to the Kongo medicines of God, leaves, horns, water, and stars.

   • 2007, Kevin Filan, The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Destiny Books 2007, p. 15:

     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.

veve

1. bitter

From Old Norse vefa, from Proto-Germanic *webaną, from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to weave”). Compare with Danish væve, Swedish väva, Faroese veva, Icelandic vefa.

veve (imperative vev, present tense vever, passive veves, simple past veva or vevet or vevde, past participle veva or vevet or vevd, present participle vevende)

1. to weave (form something by passing strands of material over and under one another)

• “veve” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

veve (present tense vev, past tense vov, past participle vove, present participle vevande, imperative vev)

1. Alternative form of veva

• IPA^(key): /ˈve.ve/

veve

1. leaves placed over an oven as insulation
2. (in the presence of a chief) a pig's liver

veve

1. (of something animate) to be numerous

• Pratt, George. A Samoan Dictionary. 1862. Page 373.