[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry's glasses/now origins of AK

[Carolina]

No: HPFGUIDX 77445


Severus Snape:
> One more thing.  Has anyone notice Kadavra sounds alot like
> cadaver?


CW:

> I've always thought it was a play on the conjuror's cry
> of 'Abracadabra' eg when pulling a rabbit out of a hat. 

>From the wikkipedia:

[[[The term may come from the Arabic Abra Kadabra, meaning 'let the 
things be destroyed' or from the Aramaic abhadda kedhabhra, meaning 
'disappear like this word'. Rather than being used as a curse, the 
phrase is believed to have been used as a means of treating illness.

Either of the original phrases may have brought into being the term 
Abracadabra. In common language, the word kedavra has evolved into 
cadaver, meaning dead body. But note also cadaver may come from Latin 
cadere, "to fall". ]]] 

& Harry Houdini used it.

silmariel