Old English · noun
wicca
Normalised wiċċa
- Part of speech
- noun, masculine
- Declension
- weak
- IPA
- /ˈwit.t͡ʃɑ/
- Syllables
- ˈwit · t͡ʃɑ (2 syllables)
- Modern English
- wiccadruidnecromancerwitchmagiciansorcererwizard
Meaning
-
witch, wizard, sorcerer, magician, druid, necromancer
Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan ⁊ scinlæcan ⁊ wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban.
Women who are accustomed to receiving enchanters and sorceresses and witches, do not let them live.
c. 890, Ælfred, Domboc, Prologue
Declension
All forms (4)
Etymology
From Proto-West Germanic *wikkō (“necromancer, sorcerer”). Further etymology uncertain; apparently from Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“separate, divide”), conjectured to be because of early Germanic divinatory practices to do with casting lots (cleromancy). The exact etymology is problematic. R. Lühr (Expressivität und Lautgesetz im Germanischen, Heidelberg (1988), p. 354) connects wigol "prophetic, mantic", wīglian "to practice divination" (Middle Low German wichelen (“bewitch”) and suggests Proto-Germanic *wigōn, via Kluge's law becoming *wikkōn. The basic form would then be the feminine, wicc…
Descendants
wicca, wicked, witch
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wicca · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution