malocchion.

1821 Archaeologia 19 71 This power of injuring with the eye..in Italy..is called the Mal-occhio, and among the lower orders of people, its effects are supposed to be very powerful and fatal.

1850 Southern Literary Messenger Jan. 45/1 ‘It is said, I believe,..that some persons possess a demoniac power of the eye?’ ‘I have myself seen men who were said to possess the mal-occhio,’ replied the Frenchman.

1895 F. T. Elworthy Evil Eye i. 18 The fascinator of infants, jettatore di bambini as he is called in Italy, is everywhere the most dreaded. A gentleman on three occasions acted as sponsor at Naples, and singularly all three of the children died; upon which he ever after got the reputation of having the malocchio.

1990 Independent 20 Apr. 19/1 The malocchio can turn milk sour without intending to, make women abort, induce workmen to fall from scaffolding. The late great scholar Mario Praz had the malocchio, and my Italian wife is still wary of uttering his name, except backwards.

1862 R. F. Burton City of Saints (ed. 2) ii. 122 ‘Friend, thou art a fool; thou hast let the Ojibwa strike thee,’ is the highest form of eulogy to a brave who has killed..a foe; possibly a Malocchio-like fear, the dread of praise,..underlies the habit.