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Witch - 7 dictionary results
witch
[wich] 
–noun
| 1. | a person, now esp. a woman, who professes or is supposed to practice magic, esp. black magic or the black art; sorceress. Compare warlock. |
| 2. | an ugly or mean old woman; hag: the old witch who used to own this building. |
| 3. | a person who uses a divining rod; dowser. |
–verb (used with object)
| 4. | to bring by or as by witchcraft (often fol. by into, to, etc.): She witched him into going. |
| 5. | Archaic. to affect as if by witchcraft; bewitch; charm. |
–verb (used without object)
| 6. | to prospect with a divining rod; dowse. |
–adjective
| 7. | of, pertaining to, or designed as protection against witches. |
Related forms:
witchhood, noun
witchlike, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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|
Link To Witch
| witch (wĭch) n.
v. tr.
To use a divining rod to find underground water or minerals; dowse. [Middle English wicche, from Old English wicce, witch, and wicca, wizard, sorcerer; see weg- in Indo-European roots.] witch'er·y (-ə-rē) n., witch'y adj. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Witch
Witch\, n. [Cf. Wick of a lamp.] A cone of paper which is placed in a vessel of lard or other fat, and used as a taper. [Prov. Eng.]Witch
Witch\, n. [OE. wicche, AS. wicce, fem., wicca, masc.; perhaps the same word as AS. w[=i]tiga, w[=i]tga, a soothsayer (cf. Wiseacre); cf. Fries. wikke, a witch, LG. wikken to predict, Icel. vitki a wizard, vitka to bewitch.]1. 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. There was a man in that city whose name was Simon, a witch. --Wyclif (Acts viii. 9). He can not abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch. --Shak. 2. An ugly old woman; a hag. --Shak. 3. One who exercises more than common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person; also, one given to mischief; -- said especially of a woman or child. [Colloq.] 4. (Geom.) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera. 5. (Zo["o]l.) The stormy petrel. Witch balls, a name applied to the interwoven rolling masses of the stems of herbs, which are driven by the winds over the steppes of Tartary. Cf. Tumbleweed. --Maunder (Treas. of Bot.) Witches' besoms (Bot.), tufted and distorted branches of the silver fir, caused by the attack of some fungus. --Maunder (Treas. of Bot.) Witches' butter (Bot.), a name of several gelatinous cryptogamous plants, as Nostoc commune, and Exidia glandulosa. See Nostoc. Witch grass (Bot.), a kind of grass (Panicum capillare) with minute spikelets on long, slender pedicels forming a light, open panicle. Witch meal (Bot.), vegetable sulphur. See under Vegetable.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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witch
O.E. wicce "female magician, sorceress," in later use esp. "a woman supposed to have dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their cooperation to perform supernatural acts," fem. of O.E. wicca "sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic," from verb wiccian "to practice witchcraft" (cf. Low Ger. wikken, wicken "to use witchcraft," wikker, wicker "soothsayer"). OED says of uncertain origin. Klein suggests connection with O.E. wigle "divination," and wig, wih "idol." Watkins says the nouns represent a P.Gmc. *wikkjaz "necromancer" (one who wakes the dead), from PIE *weg-yo-, from *weg- "to be strong, be lively." That wicce once had a more specific sense than the later general one of "female magician, sorceress" perhaps is suggested by the presence of other words in O.E. describing more specific kinds of magical craft. In the Laws of Ælfred (c.890), witchcraft was specifically singled out as a woman's craft, whose practitioners were not to be suffered to live among the W. Saxons:
"Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan & scinlæcan & wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban."The other two words combined with it here are gealdricge, a woman who practices "incantations," and scinlæce "female wizard, woman magician," from a root meaning "phantom, evil spirit." Another word that appears in the Anglo-Saxon laws is lyblæca "wizard, sorcerer," but with suggestions of skill in the use of drugs, since the root of the word is lybb "drug, poison, charm." Lybbestre was a fem. word meaning "sorceress," and lybcorn was the name of a certain medicinal seed (perhaps wild saffron). Weekly notes possible connection to Gothic weihs "holy" and Ger. weihan "consecrate," and writes, "the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents." In Anglo-Saxon glossaries, wicca renders L. augur (c.1100), and wicce stands for "pythoness, divinatricem." In the "Three Kings of Cologne" (c.1400) wicca translates Magi:
"Þe paynyms ... cleped þe iij kyngis Magos, þat is to seye wicchis."The glossary translates L. necromantia ("demonum invocatio") with galdre, wiccecræft. The Anglo-Saxon poem called "Men's Crafts" has wiccræft, which appears to be the same word, and by its context means "skill with horses." In a c.1250 translation of "Exodus," witches is used of the Egyptian midwives who save the newborn sons of the Hebrews: "Ðe wicches hidden hem for-ðan, Biforen pharaun nolden he ben." Witch in ref. to a man survived in dialect into 20c., but the fem. form was so dominant by 1601 that men-witches or he-witch began to be used. Extended sense of "young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners" is first recorded 1740. Witch doctor is from 1718; applied to African magicians from 1836.
"At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongu
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Witch
Occurs only in Ex. 22:18, as the rendering of _mekhashshepheh_, the feminine form of the word, meaning "enchantress" (R.V., "sorceress"), and in Deut. 18:10, as the rendering of _mekhashshepheth_, the masculine form of the word, meaning "enchanter."
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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