witch

Forms

1.A person (now usually particularly a woman) who uses magical or similar supernatural powers to influence or predict events, particularly one with malicious motives.
- He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch.
- Several of the Leechbook recipes would have done credit to the witches in Macbeth.
- It was easy to understand that they were witches, who had turned themselves into ravens.
2.A person who follows Wicca or similar New Age pagan beliefs.
- To be considered a Witch of a particular tradition you will have to be initiated into that tradition by someone else within that tradition, after following their specific program of study.
- For many neopagan witch traditions the moon is seen as both a symbol of the Goddess and of the witch's power, symbolically, and the belief is that the full moon is the best time for all acts of magic.
3.An ugly or unpleasant woman.
- I hate that old witch.
4.One who exercises more-than-common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person.

1.To dowse for water.
- Nothing would make him shut up until I brought my dogwood stick into his office and witched for water.
- And I told him there's a vein down there, I know 'caus I used to, uh, I went out here and witched one for this house, at the corner.
- Eventually, Don and Jim built nice big houses on their lots. We enjoyed watching them being built. I remember Don's builder came out and “witched” for a well.
2.To bewitch.
- She has witched the Queen's womb long ago, and witched the whole harvest.
- “Maybe the Mormonhater witched him. There's lot of stories being told around about that old man.” “Them's lies,” denied South Boy hotly. “He may have scared Havek, but he never witched him.”

Rare· #4273

Etymology tree

Old English wiċċe

Proto-Germanic *wikkōną

Proto-West Germanic *wikkōn

Proto-Indo-European *-ō

Proto-Germanic *-ô

Proto-West Germanic *-ō

Proto-West Germanic *wikkō

Old English wiċċa

Middle English wicche

English witch