spell

From Middle English spell, spel, from Old English spell (“news, story”), from Proto-Germanic *spellą (“speech, account, tale”), from Proto-Indo-European *spel- (“to tell”) or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to speak, to sound”) with the s-mobile prefix. Cognate with dialectal German Spill, Icelandic spjall (“discussion, talk”), spjalla (“to discuss, to talk”), guðspjall (“gospel”) and Albanian fjalë (“word”).

der

hoa- (prefix with various attachments for various purposes)

He cast a spell to cure warts.

Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.

under a spell

Skies are not so black / Mary took me back / Mary has broken your spell

1962, Marty Robbins (lyrics and music), “Devil Woman”:

I believe your love has placed its spell on me

2020, Deftones, The Spell of Mathematics:

A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula.


spell

en-verb

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled)

spells (present singular third-person)
spelling (participle present)
spelled (participle past)
spelled (past)

Vnchaine your spirits now with spelling Charmes,

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], page 115, column 2:

[…] although the Kings Jealousie was thus particular to her, his Affection was as general to others […] Above all, for a time he was much speld with Elianor Talbot […]

1647, George Buck, The History and Life and Reigne of Richard the Third, London, Book 4, p. 116:

1697, John Dryden (translator), Georgics, Book 3 in The Works of Virgil, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 109, lines 444-446,
This, gather’d in the Planetary Hour,
With noxious Weeds, and spell’d with Words of pow’r
Dire Stepdames in the Magick Bowl infuse;

But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me
My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:

1817, John Keats, “To a Friend who sent me some Roses”, in Poems, London: C. & J. Ollier, page 83:

To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.


witchcraft

en-noun

witchcraft (usually uncountable, plural witchcrafts)

/ˈwɪt͡ʃkɹɑːft/

From Middle English wicchecraft, wicchecreft, from Old English wiċċecræft, equivalent to witch + -craft.

Wiccans believe in a modernised form of witchcraft.

Such witchcraft has no power now to show itself, because the people don't believe in it any more.

1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], “A Day with the Capercailzies”, in H. L. Brækstad, transl., Round the Yule Log. Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, →OCLC, page 84:

The practice of witches; magic, sorcery, or the use of supernatural powers to influence or predict events.


demoniac

From Middle English demoniak et al., from Old French demoniaque, from Late Latin daemoniacus.

The exorcism was dropped from the second Edwardian Prayer Book, because of its implication that unbaptised infants were demoniacs […].

1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 53:


witchy

en-adj

witchy (comparative witchier, superlative witchiest)

witchier (comparative)
witchiest (superlative)

The children are scared to go near the witchy old woman's house at night.

Bernadette was a small wiry girl with a lot of long witchy black hair, and on the first day of school she wore only one sock.

1967, Beverly Cleary, Mitch and Amy, New York: Dell, published 1980, →ISBN, →OL, page 92:

Sabrina and the three sisters in Charmed have a myriad of witchy powers.

2006 August 8, Sharon Lamb with Lyn Mikel Brown, Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes, New York: St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 96:

Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of witches; witchlike.


demonically

en-adv

demonically (comparative more demonically, superlative most demonically)

more demonically (comparative)
most demonically (superlative)

Audition…An almost unclassifiable masterpiece of J-horror and one of the very few movies in the genre in which the demonically violent protagonist is allowed to be a woman, satirising women’s position in Japanese society and cinema.

2018 July 6, Peter Bradshaw, “The scariest horror films ever – ranked!”, in The Guardian:


corpse powder

A powder made from corpses and used by Navajo witches to curse their victims.


hexerei

Borrowed from Pennsylvania German Hexerei.


witchism

AFAIR, there's no mention of witchiness or otherwise in the conditions, unless it's picked you up a conviction for theft or fraud along the way, in which case you've got a problem. I'd have thought that the biggest problem with witching and being a postie would be sleep deprivation from all those full moon ceremonies clashing with the 5am starts [1]
Rob.
[1] Vagueness and ignorance of witchism deliberate, he said, trying to avert a new thread...

2000 December 7, Rob Linham, “OFF: Ask Umra”, in uk.media.radio.archers (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-22:

> LOL. I know it well enough to teach it in Colleges around the world.
Maybe that's causing some of our worldly problems. What exactly do you teach? Nazism/witchism! Regards, BB

2001 August 27, FuselOil, “What is the culture of the nazis/witches?”, in alt.fan.oj-simpson (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-22:

Bush worships a 40' stone owl and thinks that he, G Dubya Bush, is God. Basic witch-ism. Why else could he think the military has to uphold an oath that he doesn't?

2006 December 26, humbubba, “Hey, Bush, who's our enemy today?”, in alt.politics (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-22:

What, did you boast to Zephyra that witchism ran in your family?

2010, Kathy Reichs, “The Witch in the Wardrobe” (35:06 from the start), in Bones, season 5, episode 20, spoken by Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz):

Do what you like, where you expect happyness from, the concequences will come. All I'm trying to do is make the case that witchism isn't a way for a lot of happynessr. That is the case no more no less. Better choose wisely because the effects once entrenched can be long lasting.

2010 December 19, jos boersema, “Jesuscult down, worse cults starting up already.”, in alt.messianic (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-22:


powaqa

(Hopi culture) Synonym of two-heart (sorcerer).


anti'l

(Navajo culture) Synonym of corpse powder


hedge riding

From hedge (“boundary”) + riding (“traversing, crossing”), where the boundary is that separating this world from the spirit world.

compound

Hedge riding is shamanic in nature and is usually solitary as the hedge witch is solitary, but there is no reason why you cannot practice with others.

2012, Harmonia Saille, Pagan Portals - Hedge Witchcraft, John Hunt Publishing, page 10:

Hedge riding may be part of the spell a hedge witch puts together.

2014, Trevor Greenfield, Witchcraft Today - 60 Years On, John Hunt Publishing, unnumbered page:

The hedge is the symbolic boundary between the worlds. Hedge riding is the journey your spirit takes into the Otherworld or Underworld realms, sometimes called the upper and lower realms. The middle realm being our everyday world that we live in.
Hedge riding can take our spirit travelling back into the past to connect with our ancestors and we can meet and talk with our past-life selves.

2018, Rachel Patterson, Witchcraft...Into the Wilds, John Hunt Publishing, unnumbered page:

Shamanic journeying, as practised by a hedge witch.


hedge rider

1883, Translation of Havamal, in Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Frederick York Powell (editors, translators), Corpvs Poeticvm Boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue, Volume 1: Eddic Poetry, Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), page 27,
18. The tenth I know: If I see witches [hedge-riders] dancing in the air, I prevail so that they go astray and cannot find their own skins and their own haunts.

Witches, who were usually homeless and gaunt and sometimes crippled, were said to be hedge-riders; they roamed the darkened roads by the edge of town and were reputed to live in two realities by straddling the hedges between the civilized safety of a small village and the real and imagined dangers from ghosts and demons who dwelled beyond.

2007, Doug Lennox, Now You Know Big Book of Answers, Dundurn Press, page 118:

Verses 147–165 of the Havamal are charms. Depending on which translation you follow, reciting the charm can cause either the hedge rider to show their true self and return home, or the rider's spirit to become separated from their physical body.[…]The hedge rider of ancient times flew to the otherworld to consult with spirits and gods for the purposes of magic or prophecy. The hedge rider of modern times will certainly do this among other things.

2012, Harmonia Saille, Pagan Portals: Hedge Riding, page 4:

A witch who practises hedge riding; a hedge witch.