Witch

What it is

Witch is the English word for a person believed to practise witchcraft, magic or sorcery. It grew out of Old English wiċċe, which had a masculine form, wicca, and a feminine one, wicce. For most of its history the word carried a charge of harm: it named a worker of malevolent magic, and those accused under it became targets of witch-hunts. Old English glossaries also used it to render Latin words for diviners and soothsayers. Dictionaries today record several senses side by side: a person, usually a woman, believed to have malignant supernatural powers; a practitioner of a neopagan religion such as Wicca, which uses the name for adherents of all genders; a mean or ugly old woman; and, in figurative use since the 18th century, a charming or alluring girl or woman.

Where it comes from

The word is Germanic in origin. Old English had a verb wiccian, with a cousin in Middle Low German wicken, known from the 13th century, alongside wichelen, 'to bewitch'. Scholars disagree on the deeper root. The Brothers Grimm's dictionary linked the Ingvaeonic form *wikkōn with Gothic weihs, 'sacred', from an Indo-European root meaning 'to separate, to divide', perhaps through early Germanic lots-casting of the kind Tacitus described. R. Lühr instead connects words for prophecy and divination and reconstructs a Proto-Germanic *wigōn, with the feminine wicce as the basic form. The modern spelling, with its medial 't', first appears in the 16th century. The earliest recorded use of the word itself stands in the Laws of Ælfred of about 890.

Who does it

In everyday English today, witch usually lands on women, and the male equivalents are warlock and wizard; the Old English masculine wicca faded from Standard English much for that reason. Dictionaries now list four senses: a person, especially a woman, believed to have malignant supernatural powers; a practitioner of a neopagan tradition such as Wicca, where the label covers adherents of all genders; a hag or crone; and a charming or alluring woman. The label's edges could blur. In Friuli, in Italy, the benandanti, an agrarian visionary tradition, said that they fought witches, yet inquisitors concluded that they were witches themselves.

Peoples and places

The word belongs first to England: its earliest recorded use stands in the Laws of Ælfred of about 890, and it appears in the homilies of the grammarian Ælfric in the late 10th century. Cousins run through the Germanic languages, from Middle Low German wicken and wichelen to German Hexe and Dutch heks. In Italy, 15th-century Latin writers used maleficus, and the benandanti of Friuli were judged witches by inquisitors. In the modern era the word has carried political weight: at a Rome demonstration against the Italian abortion laws, some 100,000 women chanted it together.

What people believe

For most of its recorded life the word named a worker of harm. Fifteenth-century writers such as Johannes Nider used the Latin maleficus for a person who performed maleficium, acts of harmful sorcery, against others. A new idea then entered: that demonic forces empowered those acts. This gave the word overtones of idolatry and apostasy, adopted by the Malleus Maleficarum of 1486, though the claims remained disputed despite papal injunctions to take action. Older layers point elsewhere: Old English glossaries used wicce and wicca for Latin words meaning diviner, and one scholarly reconstruction ties the root to 'sacred' and to the casting of lots.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Etymologists treat the word's deeper history as unsettled. The Brothers Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch tied the Ingvaeonic *wikkōn to Gothic weihs, 'sacred', from an Indo-European root meaning 'to separate, to divide', and guessed the link ran through early Germanic cleromancy, divination by lots, of the kind Tacitus reported. R. Lühr instead connects words for prophecy and divination, including Middle Low German wichelen and wicker, a soothsayer, and reconstructs Proto-Germanic *wigōn, doubled through what is called Kluge's law, with the feminine wicce as the basic form. Students of Anglo-Saxon law have likewise catalogued the vocabulary of the Old English laws on magic and kindred matters.

Compare and confuse

Several words gather around witch. Old English also had hægtes or hægtesse, which became English 'hag' and is linked to 'hex'; most other Germanic languages name the witch from that root, as German Hexe and Dutch heks show, from a reconstructed *hagatusjon whose origin is unclear. The masculine wicca gave way in Standard English to 'warlock' and 'wizard'. Wicca, the modern religion, takes its own name from the same Old English word.

Law and persecution

The word first surfaces in law. The Laws of Ælfred, dated about 890, hold its earliest recorded use, and an 11th-century Old English translator added to Halitgar's Latin Penitential a phrase, swa wiccan tæcaþ, 'as the witches teach'. Old English law codes regulated magic alongside matters like poisoning and perjury, and a modern scholar has tabulated the terms each law used. On the continent, the maleficus idea fed prosecution: the Malleus Maleficarum of 1486 took up the demonic reading, and papal injunctions called for action against witches even as the underlying claims stayed disputed. In Friuli, inquisitors applied the label to the benandanti.

Today

Today the word lives several lives at once. Dictionaries record four senses, from a woman credited with malignant supernatural powers to a practitioner of a neopagan religion such as Wicca, which has taken the word as a label for adherents of all genders. Figurative use for a bewitching young girl began in the 18th century. The word has also entered politics: modern women's movements draw a line between the word's history and the treatment of women now, and at a Rome demonstration against the Italian abortion laws, some 100,000 women chanted it together.

Questions people ask about Witch

Good reading and sources

• Witch (word) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data