witchery

English

Etymology

From witch +‎ -ery.

Noun

witchery (countable and uncountable, plural witcheries)

1. (uncountable) Witchcraft.
   • 1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], translated by H. L. Brækstad, Round the Yule Log. Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, →OCLC, page 156:

     You are right to some extent in what you say. In the olden days people had a stronger belief in all kinds of witchery; now they pretend not to believe in it, that they may be looked upon as sensible and educated people, as you say.

   • 1923 December 28 (first performance), [George] Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play […], London: Constable and Company, published 1924, →OCLC, scene vi, page 79:

     They are determined that I shall be burnt as a witch; and they sent their doctor to cure me; but he was forbidden to bleed me because the silly people believe that a witch’s witchery leaves her if she is bled; so he only called me filthy names.

2. (countable) An act of witchcraft.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XXXVI, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     It may be they know something of the witcheries of this woman.

3. (uncountable, figuratively) Allure, charm, magic.
   • 1798 (date written), William Wordsworth, “Part First”, in Peter Bell, a Tale in Verse, London: […] Strahan and Spottiswoode, […]; for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], published 1819, →OCLC, page 20:

     At noon, when by the forest's edge / He lay beneath the branches high, / The soft blue sky did never melt / Into his heart,—he never felt / The witchery of the soft blue sky!

   • 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XXIV, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC:

     I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win.

   • 1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter XVII, in The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:

     He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine.

   • 1920, Edith Wharton, chapter I, in The Age of Innocence, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     [A]lready his imagination, leaping ahead of the engagement ring, the betrothal kiss and the march from Lohengrin, pictured her at his side in some scene of old European witchery.

Synonyms

• witchdom