different between incantation vs witchery

English

Alternative forms

• encantation

Etymology

From Old French incantation, from Latin incantatio. More at enchant.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /inkæn?te???n/
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

incantation (plural incantations)

1. The act or process of using formulas and/or usually rhyming words, sung or spoken, with occult ceremonies, for the purpose of raising spirits, producing enchantment, or creating other magical results.
2. A formula of words used as above.
3. (computing, slang) Any esoteric command or procedure.
   • 1998, John Purcell, Robert Kiesling, Linux: The Complete Reference: Book 1 (page 412)

     The appropriate incantation of route is shown below; the gw keyword tells it that the next argument denotes a gateway.

   • 2017, James Pogran, Learning PowerShell DSC (page 11)

     Servers move from being special snowflakes to being disposable numbers on a list that can be created and destroyed without requiring someone to remember the specific incantation to make it work.

Related terms

• incanter

Translations

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin incant?ti?. Synchronically analysable as incanter +? -ation.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.k??.ta.sj??/

Noun

incantation f (plural incantations)

1. incantation

Related terms

• enchanter

Further reading

• “incantation” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

witch +? -ery

Noun

witchery (countable and uncountable, plural witcheries)

1. (uncountable) Witchcraft.
   • 1924, George Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan, Scene 6,^[1]

     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.
   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 36,^[2]

     “ […] It may be they know something of the witcheries of this woman.”

3. (uncountable, figuratively) Allure, charm, magic.
   • 1819, William Wordsworth, Peter Bell, A Tale in Verse, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Part I, p. 20,^[3]

     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, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter 24,^[4]

     “ […] 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, The Marble Faun, Volume I, Chapter 17,^[5]

     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, The Age of Innocence, Book I, Chapter 1,^[6]

     […] already 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