Definitions

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

  • noun historical a person employed to carry out witch-hunts and identify witches.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Witch +‎ finder.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word witchfinder.

Examples

  • While Richard Wilson as Gaius pulls out all the stops when he's tortured by a witchfinder, and when the witchfinder is the deliciously harsh looking Charles Dance, who seems like he brought his own costume from home, it's telly drama as rich and sweet as chocolate cheesecake.

    SFX 2009

  • While Richard Wilson as Gaius pulls out all the stops when he's tortured by a witchfinder, and when the witchfinder is the deliciously harsh looking Charles Dance, who seems like he brought his own costume from home, it's telly drama as rich and sweet as chocolate cheesecake.

    SFX 2009

  • Witchfinder General (1968) - Charged with hunting down witches in 17th-century England, royalist "witchfinder" Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) travels from village to village with his brutish assistant Stearne (Robert Russell), forcing confessions and torturing women who refuse to comply.

    John Farr: The Best Under-Exposed Horror Movies by Farr 2008

  • Their remit seems to have expanded somewhat as they become more akin to the medieval ‘witchfinder general’ becoming so full of themselves and what they believe they stand for.

    Police Complaints – The Shocking Truth! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • One would also hope that Bailey doesn't end up looming over the pre-watershed TV schedules like some witchfinder general of the overtly sexual.

    Powerless to protect our kids? Oh, do grow up | Barbara Ellen 2011

  • Recall that Kay has, at least up to now, been an assiduous witchfinder in this regard.

    Archive 2010-01-01 2010

  • Recall that Kay has, at least up to now, been an assiduous witchfinder in this regard.

    Olympic shark jumping 2010

  • The fact that this folksy cri-de-coeur came from a woman whose home church once bizarrely brought in a Kenyan witchfinder to pray over her and keep her safe from "the spirit of witchcraft" during 2008 election lent it a certain surreal, Sarah-through-the-looking-glass quality.

    Michael Rowe: Thoughts on the "Ground Zero Mosque " and the Better Angels of Our Nature 2010

  • Kate A - thank you again for a wonderful post I don't know how you find the energy or indeed the facts - I did pay tribute to your writing on "witchfinder balls" yesterday and I don't want to patronise you so I will just say how grateful I am that someone else is bothering to refute the "fisking" I have been getting from Mike - lol phil

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2008

  • Kate A - thank you again for a wonderful post I don't know how you find the energy or indeed the facts - I did pay tribute to your writing on "witchfinder balls" yesterday and I don't want to patronise you so I will just say how grateful I am that someone else is bothering to refute the "fisking" I have been getting from Mike - lol phil

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2008

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.