Superstitious means believing that luck follows signs and charms. A superstitious habit, superstitious about magpies, deeply superstitious.
Sportspeople are famously so, and the reason is thought to be the mixture of high stakes and low control — the less you can affect an outcome, the more rituals grow around it. Almost nobody calls their own practices superstitious.
1adjectivesuperstitiousBelieving that luck follows signs and charms.
“My grandmother is so superstitious that she won't walk under a ladder.”
superstitious is a quality of belief.
Latin superstitiosus comes from superstitio, from superstare, to stand over. The connection of sense is disputed.
Latin
superstitiōsus
Old French
superstitieux
English, today
superstitious
From Old French superstitieux, from Latin superstitiōsus, from superstitio + -ōsus. Cognate with Dutch superstitieus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA