Today’s word of the day, as a follow up to yesterday’s, is witch. Pronounced / wɪtʃ /, this noun means “a person, especially a woman, who professes or is supposed to practice magic or sorcery; a sorceress,” “a woman who is supposed to have evil or wicked magical powers,” “a person who practices magic as a spiritual observance, especially as associated with neopaganism or Wicca,” “an ugly or mean old woman; hag,” or “a person who uses a divining rod; dowser” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/witch).

According to Merriam-Webster, it can also mean “a charming or alluring girl or woman” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/witch), which seems a bit the opposite of what most people think of as a witch. M-W also says that witch can also be a verb, “to affect injuriously with witchcraft” or “to influence or beguile with allure or charm” (ibid.). However, I think most people, at least today, would use the form bewitch instead. The be- is a word forming element that usually creates verbs from nouns, as in beguile, bedevil, bedazzle, befall, and become (https://www.etymonline.com/word/be-).

Etymoline.com has a lot to say about witch. It appears as “Middle English wicche, from Old English wicce ‘female magician, sorceress,’ in later use especially ‘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 Old English wicca ‘sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic,’ from verb wiccian ‘to practice witchcraft.’ Compare Low German wikken, wicken ‘to use witchcraft,’ wikker, wicker ‘soothsayer.’
“OED says it is of uncertain origin; Liberman writes, ‘None of the proposed etymologies of witch is free from phonetic or semantic difficulties.’ Watkins says the nouns represent a Proto-Germanic *wikkjaz ‘necromancer’ (one who wakes the dead), from PIE root *weg- ‘to be strong, be lively.’
Klein’s sources suggests connection with Old English wigle ‘divination,’ and wig, wih ‘idol’; Weekley also notes this, citing Gothic weihs ‘holy’ and German weihan ‘consecrate,’ and writes, ‘the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents.
“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 Old English 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 West Saxons:
Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan & scinlæcan & wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban. [Those women to live who are accustomed to receiving sorcery, fortune-tellers, and witches, do not let them live.]
“The other two words are gealdricge, a woman who practices ‘incantations,’ and scinlæce ‘female wizard, woman magician,’ from a root meaning ‘phantom, evil spirit.’
“Another word in Anglo-Saxon laws is lyblæca ‘wizard, sorcerer,’ perhaps with suggestions of skill in the use of drugs (the root of the word is lybb ‘drug, poison, charm,’ for which see leaf (n.)). Lybbestre was a fem. word meaning ‘sorceress,’ and lybcorn was the name of a certain medicinal seed (perhaps wild saffron). The use of a ‘poisoner’ word for ‘witch, sorceress’ would parallel that of the Hebrew word used for ‘witch, sorceress’ in the Levitical condemnation.
“In Anglo-Saxon glossaries, wicca renders Latin 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 pagans called the three kings Magi, that is to say, witches.]
“The glossary translates Latin necromantia (‘demonum invocatio’) with galdre, wiccecræft. The Anglo-Saxon poem called ‘Men’s Crafts’ (also ‘The Gifts of Men’) 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. [The witches hid themselves then, before Pharaoh they did not want to be.]
“Witch in reference to a man survived in dialect into 20c., but the fem. form was so dominant by c. 1600 that men-witches or he-witch began to be used.
“The extended sense of ‘old, ugly, and crabbed or malignant woman’ is from early 15c; that of ‘young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or fascinating manners’ is recorded by 1740” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=witch).

Speaking of witches, one of my all-time favorite movies began production this month in 1958. Based on a 1950 Broadway play of the same name, the movie was called Bell, Book, and Candle, and it starred Jimmy Stewart (one of my all-time favorite actors) and Kim Novak, along with Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs, among others.

In both the play and the movie, Gillian Holroyd (played by Novak in the movie) is a witch living in New York City. She owns a building, her store on the first floor and apartments above. She rents an apartment to Shep Henderon (played by Stewart). To make a long story short, she puts a spell on him to get him to fall for her, with the help of her familiar cat, Pyewacket. Part of her reason for doing so is that he is already engaged to Merle Kittridge, a woman who was a fierce rival of Gillian’s when they were in college. Merle is mentioned in the play, but she never makes an appearance. In the movie, however, she is a character.

It’s a paranormal romcom, so of course the romance runs into trouble, but I won’t say anything more about it, except this. Toward the end of the film, Shep goes to see Merle to explain why he broke off the engagement. And they have this lovely exchange:

Shep: That girl you know, Gillian Holroyd, she’s one.
Merle: A witch?
Shep: Yes.
Merle: Shep, you just never learned to spell.

You can find the clip just after the 89-minute mark of the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70s1OPboJJ8).

I wonder if the amount of information regarding the word witch is due, in part, to our fascination with the idea of women having access to magical powers. Even among most American Christians, despite the Biblical injunction to kill witches (see Exodus 22: 18 and Leviticus 20: 27), there is a fascination with witches. The Wizard of Oz, based upon a series of novels from the early 20^th century, is one of the most popular movies ever made. American evangelicals, normally the most literal minded of American Christians, love C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series, which has witches. And J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which contains good witches and bad witches, has made its author a billionaire.

There are, of course, some people who still speak out concerning the dangers of witchcraft (https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/the-rise-of-witchcraft-popular-culture-is-there-a-connection/), but I’m not worried about it. To be worried about the dangers of women who practice magic, you have to believe in magic, and the only magic I believe in is the magic of the theater.

Today’s image is from the scene described above in Bell, Book, and Candle, starring Jimmy Stewart and Janice Rule.