witch
/wɪt͡ʃ/ noun, verb
Forms witches witching witched W.I.T.C.H.
- noun A person (now usually particularly a woman) who uses magical or similar supernatural powers to influence or predict events, particularly one with malicious motives.
- noun A person who follows Wicca or similar New Age pagan beliefs.
- noun (figurative, chiefly derogatory) An ugly or unpleasant woman. “I hate that old witch.”
- noun One who exercises more-than-common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person.
- noun One given to mischief, especially a woman or child.
- noun (geometry) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera.
- noun A storm petrel.
- noun Glyptocephalus cynoglossus (witch flounder or Torbay sole), found in the North Atlantic.
- verb (intransitive) To dowse for water.
- verb (obsolete, intransitive) To practise witchcraft.
- verb (transitive) To bewitch.
- noun A cone of paper which is placed in a vessel of lard or other fat and used as a taper.
- noun (euphemistic) A bitch.
Synonyms
old woman wizardess sorceress wizard sorcerer warlock magician ugly woman shrew bespell hex jinx bechat becry beglammer bewitch conjure enchant englamour ensorcell enchantress Wiccan hag beldam beldame crone glamour
Etymology
The noun is from Middle English wicche, from Old English wiċċe (“(female) witch; sorceress”) and wiċċa (“(male) witch; sorcerer; warlock”), deverbative from wiċċian (“to practice sorcery”), from Proto-Germanic *wikkōną (compare West Frisian wikje, wikke (“to foretell; to warn”), German Low German wicken (“to soothsay”), Dutch wikken, wichelen (“to dowse; to divine”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wik-néh₂-, derivation of *weyk- (“to consecrate; to separate”); akin to Latin victima (“sacrificial victim”), Lithuanian viẽkas (“life-force”), Sanskrit वि॒नक्ति॑ (vinákti, “to set apart; to separate out”). Possibly related to wicked; see that entry for more. The verb derives from the noun.
The mathematical curve derives from a translation by John Colson of the Italian versiera, from a confusion with versoria (“rope”) and avversaria (“witch”).
From Middle English wicchen, from Old English wiċċian, from Proto-Germanic *wikkōną, from Proto-Indo-European *wik-néh₂-, derivation of *weyk-. In the senses arising in Middle English and later probably aphetic from bewitch.
Compare wick.
Chosen for its euphemistic rhyme.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A cone of paper which is placed in a vessel of lard or other fat, and used as a taper. [Prov. Eng.]
- noun One who practices the black art, or magic; one regarded as possessing supernatural or magical power by compact with an evil spirit, esp. with the Devil; a sorcerer or sorceress; --now applied chiefly or only to women, but formerly used of men as well.
- noun An ugly old woman; a hag. Shak.
- verb To bewitch; to fascinate; to enchant.
Etymology [Cf. Wick of a lamp.]
Etymology [OE. wicche, AS. wicce, fem., wicca, masc.; perhaps the same word as AS. witiga, witga, a soothsayer (cf. Wiseacre); cf. Fries. wikke, a witch, LG. wikken to predict, Icel. vitki a wizard, vitka to bewitch.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “witch”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details