witchery
witchery noun: witchcraft.
Noun
witchery (countable and uncountable, plural witcheries)
- Witchcraft.
- You are right to some extent in what you say. In the olden days people had a stronger belief in all kinds of witchery; now they pretend not to believe in it, that they may be looked upon as sensible and educated people, as you say.1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], translated by H. L. Brækstad, Round the Yule Log. Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, →OCLC...
- They are determined that I shall be burnt as a witch; and they sent their doctor to cure me; but he was forbidden to bleed me because the silly people believe that a witch’s witchery leaves her if she is bled; so he only called me filthy names.1923 December 28 (first performance), [George] Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play […], London: Constable and Company, published 1924, →OCLC, scene vi, page 79
- Synonyms:
- whistness, witchdom, witchwork, bewitchery, black arts, charmwork, conjuration, conjuring, craft, dark arts
- An act of witchcraft.
- It may be they know something of the witcheries of this woman.1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XXXVI, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst...
- Synonyms:
- witching, bewitching, bewitchment, spellcasting, enchanting, enchantment, fascination, ensorcellment, incantation
- Allure, charm, magic.
- At noon, when by the forest's edge / He lay beneath the branches high, / The soft blue sky did never melt / Into his heart,—he never felt / The witchery of the soft blue sky!1798 (date written), William Wordsworth, “Part First”, in Peter Bell, a Tale in Verse, London: […] Strahan and Spottiswoode, […]; for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], published 1819...
- I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win.1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XXIV, in Jane Eyre. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC
witchery meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
witchery in Tamil
- சூன்ய வித்தை
witchery in Urdu
- فتون, سحر
witchery in Malayalam
- മന്ത്രവാദിനികളുടെ ചേഷ്ടകൾ, ദുരാചാരങ്ങൾ, ഐന്ദ്രജാലിക സ്വാധീനങ്ങൾ
Examples of witchery in a sentence
- He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine.1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter XVII, in The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and...
- The witchery of the dawn turned the grey river-reaches to purple, gold, and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept across the splendors of a new heaven.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 141:
- [A]lready his imagination, leaping ahead of the engagement ring, the betrothal kiss and the march from Lohengrin, pictured her at his side in some scene of old European witchery.1920, Edith Wharton, chapter I, in The Age of Innocence, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
Synonyms of witchery
- whistness
- witchdom
- witchwork
- bewitchery
- black arts
- charmwork
- conjuration
- conjuring
- dark arts
- diablerie
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- druidcraft
- dwimmercraft
- enchantment
- gypsycraft
- hexcraft
- hexerei
- magic
- mojo
- sorcery
- sortilege
- spellcasting
- spellcraft
- spellwork
- thaumaturgy
- wandwork
- warlockry
- witchcraft
- wizardry
- wonderworking
- witching
- bewitching
- bewitchment
- enchanting
- ensorcellment
- incantation
- craft
- dweomercraft
- dwimmer
- goety
- jugglery
Forms of witchery
| plural | witcheries |
|---|
Origin of witchery
From witch + -ery.
Words formed from witchery
Questions about witchery
- What does witchery mean?
- Witchery means witchcraft.
- What is witchery in Tamil?
- Witchery in Tamil is சூன்ய வித்தை. See Witchery meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use witchery in a sentence?
- He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine.
- What part of speech is witchery?
- Witchery is a noun.
- What is the plural of witchery?
- The plural of witchery is witcheries.
Words near witchery in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: witchery (page history and authors); witchery (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); witchery (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); witchery (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-witchery.wav.
Cite this entry: “witchery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/witchery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.