witchfinder general in English

Forms: witchfinders general [plural], witchfinder generals [plural], witch-finder general [alternative] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: From witchfinder + general. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|witchfinder|general}} witchfinder + general Head templates: {{en-noun|witchfinders general|s}} witchfinder general (plural witchfinders general or witchfinder generals)

Inflected forms

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "witchfinder",
        "3": "general"
      },
      "expansion": "witchfinder + general",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From witchfinder + general.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "witchfinders general",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "witchfinder generals",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "witch-finder general",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "witchfinders general",
        "2": "s"
      },
      "expansion": "witchfinder general (plural witchfinders general or witchfinder generals)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "90 10",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms where the adjective follows the noun",
          "parents": [
            "Terms where the adjective follows the noun",
            "Terms by lexical property"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "87 13",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A title assumed by in 1645, by Matthew Hopkins an English witch-hunter."
      ],
      "id": "en-witchfinder_general-en-noun-DtU7ngnS",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) A title assumed by in 1645, by Matthew Hopkins an English witch-hunter."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "By analogy an overly zealous investigator or accuser."
      ],
      "id": "en-witchfinder_general-en-noun-M9hNgAOy"
    }
  ],
  "word": "witchfinder general"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms where the adjective follows the noun",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "witchfinder",
        "3": "general"
      },
      "expansion": "witchfinder + general",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From witchfinder + general.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "witchfinders general",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "witchfinder generals",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "witch-finder general",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "witchfinders general",
        "2": "s"
      },
      "expansion": "witchfinder general (plural witchfinders general or witchfinder generals)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with historical senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A title assumed by in 1645, by Matthew Hopkins an English witch-hunter."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) A title assumed by in 1645, by Matthew Hopkins an English witch-hunter."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "By analogy an overly zealous investigator or accuser."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "witchfinder general"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (51d164f and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"witchfinder general" meaning in English

Noun

Inflected forms