Forms: 1 wice, wic, wyc, 5–7 wyche, 6–8 wich, (6 wi(t)che, wiech, wech(e, weach, 7 weech), 6– wych, witch. [OE. wice and wic; app. f. Teut. wik- to bend (see WIKE, WEEK sb., WEAK a.).] Applied generally or vaguely to various trees having pliant branches: esp. † a. the WYCH ELM, Ulmus montana (of which bows were made); b. (now dial.) the mountain ash, Pyrus aucuparia. Also attrib.; witch alder, a witch hazel with alder-like leaves, Fothergilla alnifolia, native to Virginia and North Carolina. (See also WITCH HAZEL.)
c. 725. Corpus Gloss. (Hessels), C 106. Cariscus, cuicbeam, uuice.
a. 1000. Ags. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 200/20. Cariscus,… wic, uel cwicbeam.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 86. Ʒenim cwicbeam rinde … wir, wice, ac, [etc.].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 526/1. Wyche, tre, ulmus.
1534. Star Chamber Cases (Selden Soc.), II. 308. Mulso … wrongfully fellid xxvij trees of asche and wyche.
1537. St. Papers Hen. VIII., II. 483. That 3 or 4000 wyche bowes … be brought hyther.
1548. Turner, Names Herbes (1881), 81. Vlmus is called … in englishe an Elme tree, or a Wich tree.
1556. Withals, Dict. (1562), 23/2. A witche tree, opulus.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., June, 20. Nor holybush, nor brere, nor winding witche.
1613. [Standish], New Direct. Planting, 11. As of Elme, so of Wyche, being a wood as apt to grow speedily as any other wood.
1616. T. Scot, Philomythie, II. B 4 b. The cursed Eldar and the fatall Yewe, With Witch, and Nightshade in their shadowes grew.
1845–50. Mrs. Lincoln, Lect. Bot., App. 103. Fothergilla alnifolia (witch-alder).
1861. D. H. Haigh, Conq. Brit. by Saxons, 78, note. The tree of which he speaks is probably the mountain-ash, rown or witch, the magical uses of which are not obsolete even in this nineteenth century.
1868. Atkinson, Cleveland Gloss., Witch-wood, the mountain ash or rowan-tree.
1869. Lonsdale Gloss., Witch-wand, a twig of the mountain ash, once used to find minerals.
