ˈwater-witch
1. A witch inhabiting the water.
| a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) I. 77 A Water-witch with Charms Could sink their Men of War, as easy as Storms. 1877 Black Green Past. xxxvii. (1878) 297 Presently we found ourselves in a sort of water-witches' paradise. Far below us boiled that hell-cauldron of white smoke [etc.]. |
2. a. U.S. A name for several water-birds noted for their quickness in diving: see quots.
| 1789 Morse Amer. Geog. (1792) 60 Water-witch. 1859 Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), Dipper, a small aquatic bird, common throughout the United States, also called the Water⁓witch and Hell-diver. 1862 Coues & Prentiss in Rep. Smithsonian Inst. 1861, 419 Podiceps cristatus..Crested Grebe. ‘Water Witch.’ Ibid., Podilymbus podiceps... ‘Dipper.’ ‘Water Witch.’ 1899 C. B. Cory Birds E. North Amer. i. 132 Colymbus auritus Linn. Horned Grebe. Water Witch. |
b. The stormy petrel, Procellaria pelagica.
| 1852 Macgillivray Brit. Birds V. 460. |
3. U.S. = water-finder.
| 1859 Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), Water-Witch. A person who pretends to have the power of discovering subterranean springs by means of the divining rod. 1883 Harper's Mag. Oct. 708/2 Utah..abounds in ‘water-witches.’ 1890 L. C. Doyle Notches 154 His men had reached a depth of about a hundred and thirty feet without striking water, when there chanced to come along a man known throughout the section as a ‘water-witch.’ |