Entry · catalog no. 3671
mojo
/ /ˈmoʊdʒoʊ/ /MOH-joh
noun · Southern · nationwide · 1950s
✓ Verified
1.
Personal magic; a charm, a spell, or the intangible power that makes things go your way. To have your mojo working is to be operating at full force.
“He walked in with his mojo working and the whole audition turned his way.”
Origin & Attribution
Rooted in Hoodoo, the folk spiritual practice of Black communities in the American South, where a mojo was a charm bag carrying protective or attracting power. Muddy Waters carried the word to the wider world with "Got My Mojo Working" in 1957. Pop culture later flattened it into a vague word for confidence.
1957
Muddy Waters records Got My Mojo Working
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Southern · nationwide · 1950s
Spoken by
Hoodoo practitioners and Black Southern communities; general use
$MOJOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady69 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1957
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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See also