Definition

  witch:
1. a person believed to have magic power: sorceress
2. an ugly old woman: hag
3. a charming or alluring girl or woman

The Merriam Webster Dictionary

 

 According to sixteenth-century English lawyer William West:

 “ A witch or a hag is she which being deluded by a league made with the devil through his persuasion, inspiration or juggling, thinketh she can design what manner or evil things soever, either by thought or imprecation, as to shake the air with lightnings and thunder, to cause hail and tempests, to remove green corn or trees to another place, to be carried of her familiar (which hath taken upon him the deceitful shape of a goat, swine, or calf, etc.) into some mountain far distant, in a wonderful short space of time, and sometime to fly upon a staff or fork, or some other instrument, and to show a thousand such monstrous mockeries.”

Ethymology

"Witch" comes from the Anglo-Saxon wicce (meaning witch), which in turn derives from an Indo-European root word meaning to bend or change or do magic/religion (making it related to "wicker," "wiggle," and even "vicar"). It is possibly also related to the Old Norse vitki (meaning wizard), derived from root words meaning "wise one" or "seer." "Warlock" (rarely used, for male Witches) is from the Old Norse varðlokkur, "spirit song" (not "oath-breaker").

 "When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the hurly-burly's done. When the battle's lost and won.
That will be ere the set of sun...
Fair is foul, and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air."
 Macbeth, Act I, Scene I

Translations and other names

hexe, häxen, hexse, hess, hächse, hezze (german)

hag (english)

heks (dutch)

sorciere (french)

stregha, erbaria (italian)

bruja (spanish)

bruxa (portugese)

larva, malefica, lamia, venefica, striga, masca, maga (latin)