incantate

English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin incantāt-, participle stem of incantō.^[1]

Verb edit

incantate (third-person singular simple present incantates, present participle incantating, simple past and past participle incantated)

(transitive, intransitive) To sing or speak formulas and/or rhyming words, often during occult ceremonies, for the purpose of raising spirits, producing enchantment, or creating other magical results.
- 1969, Status‎^[1], numbers 218-227, Curtis Publishing Company:
  Your modern witch never incantates in public.
- 1985, Glenda Abramson, Essays in Honour of Salo Rappaport: On the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday‎^[2]:
  Yet these are words of magic incantated by a non-religious priest: a poet.
- 2010, S. Giora Shoham, To Test the Limits of Our Endurance‎^[3]:
  In his prose poem, Lessness, Beckett incantates a haunting description of total ruin.

Related terms edit

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *keh₂n-‎ (0 c, 24 e)

Translations edit

to recite formulas during ceremonies

Maori: poa

References edit

^ James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “† Incantate, v.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes V (H–K), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 142, column 1: “f. ppl. stem of L. incantāre: see prec.”