enchantress vs witch what difference

what is difference between enchantress and witch

English

Alternative forms

• enchauntress, inchantress (both obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English enchaunteresse, from Old French enchanteresse.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtʃæntɹɪs/, /ɛnˈtʃæntɹɪs/, /-ɹəs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtʃɑːntɹɪs/, /ɛnˈtʃɑːntɹɪs/, /-ɹəs/

Noun

enchantress (plural enchantresses, masculine enchanter)

1. A woman, especially an attractive one, skilled at using magic; an alluring witch.
2. A beautiful, charming and irresistible woman.

   She was the enchantress of men’s hearts.

3. A femme fatale.

   His desire for that enchantress led him to financial ruin!

Synonyms

• (alluring witch): siren, sorceress
• (beautiful woman): See Thesaurus:beautiful woman
• (femme fatale): See Thesaurus:vamp

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: wĭch, IPA^(key): /wɪtʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɪtʃ
• Homophone: which (in accents with the wine-whine merger), wich, wych

Etymology 1

From Middle English wicche, from Old English wiċċe (“witch (female), sorceress”) and wiċċa (“witch (male), sorcerer, warlock”), deverbative from wiċċian (“to practice sorcery”), from Proto-Germanic *wikkōną (compare West Frisian wikje, wikke (“to foretell, warn”), German Low German wicken (“to soothsay”), Dutch wikken, wichelen (“to dowse, divine”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wik-néh₂-, derivation of *weyk- (“to consecrate; separate”); akin to Latin victima (“sacrificial victim”), Lithuanian viẽkas (“life-force”), Sanskrit विनक्ति (vinákti, “to set apart, separate out”).

Noun

witch (plural witches)

1. A person who practices witchcraft.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:witch.
   1. (now usually particularly) A woman who is learned in and actively practices witchcraft.
2. (derogatory) An ugly or unpleasant woman.

3. One who exercises more-than-common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person.
4. One given to mischief, especially a woman or child.
5. (geometry) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera.
6. The stormy petrel.
7. Any of a number of flatfish:
   1. Glyptocephalus cynoglossus (Torbay sole), found in the North Atlantic.
   2. Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis (megrim), found in the North Atlantic.
   3. Arnoglossus scapha, found near New Zealand.
8. The Indomalayan butterfly Araotes lapithis, of the family Lycaenidae.

Synonyms

• (person who uses magic): See Thesaurus:magician
• (female magic user): wizardess, sorceress
• (male magic user): wizard, sorcerer, warlock
• (an ugly or unpleasant woman): See Thesaurus:old woman or Thesaurus:ugly woman or Thesaurus:shrew

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• Arnoglossus scapha on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Arnoglossus scapha on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Arnoglossus scapha on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Verb

witch (third-person singular simple present witches, present participle witching, simple past and past participle witched)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To practise witchcraft.
2. (transitive) To bewitch.
   • 2012, Carol Berg, The Daemon Prism: A Novel of the Collegia Magica, Penguin (→ISBN)

     The little man was seething and shaking, near collapse with fear and anger. “Tell ’em, Alvy.” “A tenday ago, Will came to the Cockatoo acting crazy, so scared he’d pissed hisself. Said the sorcerer had found him in the stables and witched him.”

   • 2014, Charles L. McNichols, Crazy Weather, Counterpoint Press (→ISBN)

     “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.”

   • 2017, Benjamin R. Kracht, Kiowa Belief and Ritual, U of Nebraska Press (→ISBN), page 134:

     Sometime in 1945 he faced an opponent who apparently “witched” him, causing facial paralysis and dizzy spells that rendered him bedridden. An old Indian doctor came to his bedside, looked into his eyes, and proclaimed that he had been witched by his Seminole adversary.

3. (intransitive) To dowse for water.

Derived terms

• witcher

See also

References

Etymology 2

Compare wick.

Noun

witch (plural witches)

1. A cone of paper which is placed in a vessel of lard or other fat and used as a taper.

Scots

Alternative forms

• wutch, whitch

Etymology

From Middle English wicche, from Old English wiċċe (“witch (female),sorceress”) and wiċċa (“witch (male), sorcerer”) m., deverbative from wiċċian (“to practice sorcery”), from Proto-Germanic *wikkōną (compare West Frisian wikje, wikke (“to foretell, warn”), German Low German wicken (“to soothsay”), Dutch wikken, wichelen (“to dowse, divine”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wik-néh₂-, derivation of *weyk- (“to consecrate; separate”); akin to Latin victima (“sacrificial victim”), Lithuanian viẽkas (“life-force”), Sanskrit विनक्ति (vinákti, “to set apart, separate out”).

Noun

witch (plural witchs)

1. witch; A person, chiefly a woman, skilled in sorcery.
   1. warlock
2. (transferred) Various animals, insects and objects in some way associated with witches.
   1. A moth in general; a tortoiseshell butterfly.
   2. The pole flounder or dab, Glyptocephalus cynoglossus.
   3. The seaweed, Laminaria saccharina.
   4. A red clay marble, generally one that is considered effective in winning games, a “wizard”.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Verb

witch (third-person singular present, present participle witching, past witchit, past participle witchit)

1. (transitive) To harm (a person, etc.) by means of witchcraft; to bewitch, cast a spell on.
2. (figuratively) To affect or influence as by witchcraft.

Further reading

• “witch” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.

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