Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person, especially a woman, claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery.
  • noun A believer or follower of Wicca; a Wiccan.
  • noun Offensive An old woman considered to be ugly or frightening.
  • noun A woman considered to be spiteful or overbearing.
  • noun Informal A woman or girl considered to be charming or fascinating.
  • noun One particularly skilled or competent at one's craft.
  • intransitive verb To work or cast a spell on; bewitch.
  • intransitive verb To cause, bring, or effect by witchcraft.
  • intransitive verb To use a divining rod to find underground water or minerals; dowse.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person (of either sex) given to the black art; a sorcerer; a conjurer; a wizard; later and more particularly, a woman supposed to have formed a compact with the devil or with evil spirits, and to be able by their aid to operate supernaturally; one who practises sorcery or enchantment; a sorceress.
  • noun An old, ugly, and crabbed or malignant woman; a hag; a crone: a term of abuse.
  • noun A fascinating woman; a woman, especially a young woman or a girl, possessed of peculiar attractions, whether of beauty or of manners; a bewitching or charming young woman or girl.
  • noun A charm or spell.
  • noun A petrel: doubtless so called from its incessant flight, often kept up in the dark.
  • noun A water-witch.
  • noun The pole, pole-dab, or craigfluke, a kind of flatfish.
  • To bewitch; fascinate; enchant.
  • To work by charms or witchcraft; effect, cause, or bring by or as by witchcraft.
  • noun The witch-elm, Ulmus montana.
  • noun A modified and simplified form of a Jacquard attachment to a loom, for a more limited range of work; a dobby or index-machine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Prov. Eng. A cone of paper which is placed in a vessel of lard or other fat, and used as a taper.
  • transitive verb To bewitch; to fascinate; to enchant.
  • 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.
  • noun colloq. 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.
  • noun (Geom.) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The stormy petrel.
  • noun A Wiccan; an adherent or practitioner of Wicca, a religion which in different forms may be paganistic and nature-oriented, or ditheistic. The term witch applies to both male and female adherents in this sense.
  • noun 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.
  • noun (Bot.) tufted and distorted branches of the silver fir, caused by the attack of some fungus.
  • noun (Bot.) a name of several gelatinous cryptogamous plants, as Nostoc commune, and Exidia glandulosa. See Nostoc.
  • noun (Bot.) a kind of grass (Panicum capillare) with minute spikelets on long, slender pedicels forming a light, open panicle.
  • noun (Bot.) vegetable sulphur. See under Vegetable.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An Atlantic flatfish, Glyptocephalus cynoglossus; Torbay sole.
  • verb To dowse for water
  • noun archaic or dialectal A man who practises witchcraft.
  • noun A woman who is learned in and actively practices witchcraft.
  • noun derogatory An ugly or unpleasant woman.
  • noun Wicca A Wiccan.
  • verb obsolete To practise witchcraft
  • verb To bewitch

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a being (usually female) imagined to have special powers derived from the devil
  • noun a believer in Wicca
  • verb cast a spell over someone or something; put a hex on someone or something
  • noun an ugly evil-looking old woman
  • noun a female sorcerer or magician

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English wicche, from Old English wicce, witch, and wicca, wizard, sorcerer; see weg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown.

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  • a witch!

    October 10, 2010