witch 1 of 2

noun

ˈwich How to pronounce witch (audio)
Definition of witchnext
1
as in sorcerer
a woman believed to have often harmful supernatural powers the 17th-century house had once belonged to a woman who was hanged as a witch

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance
2
as in hag
a mean or ugly old woman a foul-tempered old witch who is constantly at odds with her neighbors

Synonyms & Similar Words
3
as in mage
a person skilled in using supernatural forces freakish storms that were once thought to be the work of witches

Synonyms & Similar Words

witch

2 of 2

verb

archaic
as in to charm
to attract or delight as if by magic the woman did witch me with her gentle smile

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of witch
Noun
My novel Strange Folk follows a family of small-town Appalachian witches suspected of murder after a body turns up in their woods. — Alli Dyer, PEOPLE, 9 Aug. 2026 The story follows an aspiring witch, Coco, who finds herself in the center of an ideological conflict between two factions between the Pointed Hats and the Brimmed Caps witches. — Kalai Chik, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2026
Verb
Finally, today is triple witching with equity options, futures and futures options all set to expire. — Jj Kinahan, Forbes.com, 19 Sep. 2025 And also that people have used four branches of witch hazel as the vining rods or witching sticks to find water. — Steve Bender, Southern Living, 27 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for witch
Recent Examples of Synonyms for witch
  1. sorcerer
  2. hag
  3. mage
  4. charm
  5. sorceress
  6. magician
  7. fascinate
  8. wizard
Noun
  • The woods could be hiding places of witches and sorcerers, disguised as the old and feeble, but capable of summoning wonder and terrors, charms as well as curses.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 30 July 2026
  • The sequence featuring Circe, the sorcerer who turns Odysseus’s men into pigs, might be the most disturbing of them all, not so much for what’s shown as for what’s implied, as the men’s body-horror-like transformations occur in tight shots.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 16 July 2026
Definition of sorcerer
Noun
  • Pinned beneath her rotting legs in his recliner chair, Loftis narrowly escapes by yanking its lever, catapulting the hag over his head.
    — Tessa Solomon, ARTnews.com, 15 July 2026
  • They're also known as hag moth caterpillars.
    — Samantha Johnson, Martha Stewart, 20 June 2026
Definition of hag
Noun
  • This young adult fantasy follows a 16-year-old who discovers a magical attack and realizes this new world of demons and mages has a connection to her mother’s death.
    — Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 2 July 2026
  • Or this one, where the mage Nic Cage totes Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 25 June 2026
Definition of mage
Verb
  • And as always, Reacher’s bone-dry and hyper-literal wit continues to charm in this new adventure from showrunner Nick Santora (this time adapting author Lee Child’s Gone Tomorrow).
    — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 11 Aug. 2026
  • Artists and engineers bunked in, the artist’s turtle Rocky charmed visitors, and Rauschenberg created some key works in his studio there.
    — Brian Boucher, ARTnews.com, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of charm
Noun
  • The purple one is supposedly Clea, the sorceress who meets up with Doctor Strange at the end of Multiverse and is promptly never seen again.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes.com, 10 Aug. 2026
  • Nobody makes more of their limited screentime than Samantha Morton as the sorceress Circe in one of the film’s most powerful sequences.
    — ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 1 Aug. 2026
Definition of sorceress
Noun
  • Whether magicians, thieves, or just fed up citizens, somebody has made an entire city’s worth of ALPRs vanish in the night.
    — Joe Wilkins, Futurism, 5 Aug. 2026
  • Elizebeth Berkley poses with America’s Got Talent winner and magician Mat Franco at the Linq Hotel after his show in Las Vegas on July 21.
    — Stephanie Sengwe, PEOPLE, 29 July 2026
Definition of magician
Verb
  • The 31-year-old rapper, a member of the megagroup NCT and the leader of its subgroup NCT 127, has seemingly always been fascinated by merging different genres to create a new song.
    — Nicole Fell, HollywoodReporter, 13 Aug. 2026
  • Questions around beauty and longing recur, as do keywords (such as ‘password’), names, references and scenic features, but what fascinated me most is that in principle each episode could be read as a little patchy universe on its own.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 11 Aug. 2026
Definition of fascinate
Noun
  • Hoult’s Gilderoy Lockhart a notoriously vain, boastful and fame-obsessed wizard well versed in Memory Charms who is recruited by Dumbledore as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.
    — Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 11 Aug. 2026
  • But then they’re interrupted by Wil Wheaton, who’s a wizard in this universe.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of wizard

Browse Nearby Words

wit
witch
witchcraft
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Witch.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/witch. Accessed 14 Aug. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on witch

Nglish: Translation of witch for Spanish Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about witch

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of vacuous

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

A Who’s Who Regarding ‘Who’s’ and ‘Whose’

7 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

Words from the 'Odyssey'

The Longest Long Words List

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

The Words of the Week - Aug. 14

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

A Who’s Who Regarding ‘Who’s’ and ‘Whose’

Words from the 'Odyssey'

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
image of a green cube out of place in a lineup of red spheres
Odd Word Out: Synonyms Vol. 2 Quiz Figure out which word isn't like the others.
See All