witch

«witch» in Mova's school dictionary: a woman (and sometimes a man) who has magic powers, often… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a witch, witches)

meaning for a pupil

1) In fairy tales and stories, a witch is a woman (and sometimes a man) who has magic powers, often shown with a pointed hat, a broomstick, a black cat and a cauldron. tree →

2) In history, many people, mostly poor or old women, were wrongly accused of being witches and punished or killed in witch hunts. tree →

3) Some people today follow religions such as Wicca and call themselves witches; for them it is about nature and their beliefs, not evil. tree →

4) (rude, insulting) Calling a woman «a witch» means she is nasty or ugly; this is unkind. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories and Halloween, witches can be wicked (the witch in «Hansel and Gretel», the White Witch of Narnia) or good (Hermione in «Harry Potter», Meg in «Meg and Mog»). In history lessons, the witch trials in Europe and at Salem in America show how fear and rumours led to innocent people being harmed; «a witch hunt» now means unfairly blaming and attacking someone. In the Bible, King Saul visits the witch of Endor. Phrases: wicked witch, witch hunt, witch's hat, witching hour.

examples

• The witch flew over the town on her broomstick. tree →
• The wicked witch locked Hansel in a cage. tree →
• I dressed up as a witch for Halloween. tree →
• In the past, innocent women were accused of being witches. tree →
• The witch stirred a bubbling cauldron. tree →
• The newspaper said the inquiry was a witch hunt. tree →
• Witches are not real in the way stories show them. tree →
• The White Witch made it always winter in Narnia. tree →
• The witch began gnashing her teeth. tree →

note

Countable: a witch, witches (add -es). Homophone trap: «which» (the question word) sounds the same in many accents: «Which witch is which?» A man in stories is often called a «wizard» or «warlock». Calling a real person a witch is an insult. In history, saying someone was a witch was a false accusation, not a proven fact.

In the corpora

• Pour vinegar onto a heap of baking soda and it froths up like a witch's cauldron.
• In the Salem witch trials of 1692 nineteen people were hanged and one man was crushed with stones; nobody was burned there.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «witch» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.