hag vs witch what difference

what is difference between hag and witch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hæɡ/
• Rhymes: -æɡ

Etymology 1

From Middle English hagge, hegge (“demon, old woman”), shortening of Old English hægtesse, hægtes (“harpy, witch”), from Proto-Germanic *hagatusjō (compare Saterland Frisian Häkse (“witch”), Dutch heks, German Hexe (“witch”)), compounds of (1) *hagaz (“able, skilled”) (compare Old Norse hagr (“handy, skillful”), Middle High German behac (“pleasurable”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱak- (compare Sanskrit शक्नोति (śaknóti, “he can”)), and (2) *tusjǭ (“witch”) (compare dialectal Norwegian tysja (“fairy, she-elf”)). Doublet of hex.

Noun

hag (plural hags)

1. A witch, sorceress, or enchantress; a wizard.
2. (derogatory) An ugly old woman.
3. A fury; a she-monster.
   • 1646, Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple, “Sospetto D’ Herode”, stanza 37:

     Fourth of the cursed knot of hags is she / Or rather all the other three in one; / Hell’s shop of slaughter she does oversee, / And still assist the execution

4. A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
5. A hagdon or shearwater; one of various sea birds of the genus Puffinus.
6. (obsolete) An appearance of light and fire on a horse’s mane or a man’s hair.
7. The fruit of the hagberry, Prunus padus.
8. (slang) sleep paralysis

Synonyms

• (witch or sorceress): See Thesaurus:magician
• (ugly old woman): See Thesaurus:ugly woman
• (eel-like marine fish): borer, hagfish, sleepmarken, slime eel, sucker, myxinid
• (sea bird): hagdon, haglet, shearwater
• (fruit of the hagberry): bird cherry, hackberry

Derived terms

• fag hag

Translations

Etymology 2

From Scots hag (“to cut”), from Old Norse hǫgg (“cut, gap, breach”), derivative of hǫggva (“to hack, hew”); compare English hew.

Noun

hag (plural hags)

1. A small wood, or part of a wood or copse, which is marked off or enclosed for felling, or which has been felled.
2. A quagmire; mossy ground where peat or turf has been cut.

Etymology 3

From Proto-Germanic *hag(g)ōnan (compare obsolete Dutch hagen (“to torment, agonize”), Norwegian haga (“to tire, weaken”)).

Verb

hag (third-person singular simple present hags, present participle hagging, simple past and past participle hagged)

1. (transitive) To harass; to weary with vexation.

References

Further reading

• Hag in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• HGA, agh, gah, gha

Breton

Conjunction

hag

1. and

Synonyms

• (before consonants or /j/) ha

Cornish

Conjunction

hag

1. and

Synonyms

• (before consonants) ha

Danish

Verb

hag

1. imperative of hage

Scots

Etymology 1

From Middle English haggen (“to hack, chop, cut”), from Old Norse hǫggva (“to hew”). Compare English hag, above. Noun attested from the 14th century in Older Scots, with the verb from c. 1400.

Alternative forms

• hagg
• haag, haug

Noun

hag (plural hags)

1. a notch; a pit or break
2. a stroke of an axe or similar instrument
3. the felling of timber; the quantity of wood felled
4. a quagmire from which peat or turf is cut

Verb

hag (third-person singular present hags, present participle haggin, past hagg’d, past participle haggit)

1. to chop (wood); to hack; to dig out (coal etc.)
2. (figuratively) to make a hash of (something)
3. to cut down trees and prepare timber

Etymology 2

Unknown. Perhaps from Etymology 1 above, “to hack”, thus “castrate”. Compare hogg (“a young sheep”). Attested from the 19th century.

Noun

hag (plural hags)

1. an ox
2. a cattleman, one who raises cattle or oxen

   Synonym: hagman

Etymology 3

From Icelandic hagga (“to budge; to put out of place”). Attested from the 20th century.

Verb

hag (third-person singular present hags, present participle haggin, past hagg’d, past participle haggit)

1. to hinder; to impede

References

• “hag, v¹, n¹.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–, OCLC 57069714, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
• “hag, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–, OCLC 57069714, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
• “hag, v.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–, OCLC 57069714, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
• “haggen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “hag, n².”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–, OCLC 57069714, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
• “hag, v².”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–, OCLC 57069714, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

Westrobothnian

Etymology

From Old Saxon hago (“enclosure”). Doublet of haga.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [hɑːɣ], [hæːɣ]

  Rhymes: -áːɣ, -ǽːɣ

  (a-o merger) Rhymes: -ɑ́ːɣ, -ɒ́ːɣ

Noun

hag n (definite hagjä)

1. simple fence or enclosure made of sticks, twigs or bushes
2. (hunting) such a construction used for hunting, with openings with snares and traps where birds and hares are caught

Derived terms

• ryphag

Related terms

• hååg
• haga
• hägi

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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