witch
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "witch", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "witch" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "witch" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
witch is aEnglishnoun. It means: A person (now usually particularly a woman) who uses magical or similar supernatural powers to influence or predict events. Pronounced /wɪt͡ʃ/. It ranks #6,019 in English word frequency. Often confused with WTH and WTC.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | witch |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /wɪt͡ʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,019 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for witch is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /wɪt͡ʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,019 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for witch, with forms such as "iwtch", "wicth", and "witcch". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "WTH", "WTC", "with", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is 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 (“t… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is witch, spelled W-I-T-C-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A person (now usually particularly a woman) who uses magical or similar supernatural powers to influence or predict events.
- 2A woman who follows Wicca or similar New Age pagan beliefs.
- 3An ugly or unpleasant woman.
- 4One who exercises more-than-common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person.
- 5One given to mischief, especially a woman or child.
- 6A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera.
- 7A storm petrel.
- 8Any of a number of flatfish of species:
- 9Any of a number of flatfish of species:
- 10Any of a number of flatfish of species:
- 11An Indomalayan butterfly, of Araotes lapithis, of the family Lycaenidae.
Etymology
The noun is 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”). Possibly related to wicked; see that entry for more. The verb derives from the noun.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: iwtch,wicth,witcch,witchh,withc,wittch,wtich,wwitch
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for witch
Misspelling Variants of "witch"
Frequency rank: #6,019 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter W in our English index: