witch doctor
/ˈwɪtʃ ˌdɒktə/
"witch-doctor" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“witch doctor” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person (often male) who is believed to ward off witchcraft and heal through magical powers; a shaman.
Corpus desk
Index EN-witch-doctor · witch doctor · English
witch doctor · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "W" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | witch doctor |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɪtʃ ˌdɒktə/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “witch doctor” in English
Rare enough to double-check
witch doctor is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈwɪtʃ ˌdɒktə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
witch doctor doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is witch doctor, spelled W-I-T-C-H- -D-O-C-T-O-R.
Definition
- 1A person (often male) who is believed to ward off witchcraft and heal through magical powers; a shaman.
- 2A dragonfly.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how witch doctor appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[T]he ſaid Dorothy Durent, having been with a Witch-Doctor, acknowledges upon Oath, that by his Advice, ſhe hang'd up her Child's Blanket in the Chimney, found a Toad in it at Night, had put it into the Fire, and held it there tho' it made a great and horrible Noiſe, and flaſht like Gunpowder, and went off like a Piſtol, and then became inviſible, and tha…
Some people are so foolish as to go to a witch-doctor when they have Cows in this complaint [prematurely parting with their unborn calves]:—they give him some money, and he tells them some frivolous tale, such as that some person that wishes them bad luck, or looks upon them with an evil eye, [...]
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.