Wicca

Meaning

A neopagan religion that was first popularized by books written in 1949, 1954, and 1959 by Englishman Gerald Gardner, involving the worship of a horned male god and a moon goddess, the observance of eight Sabbats, and the performance of various rituals.

Synonyms

druidism

path

🛣️

Wiccan

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈwɪkə/

Etymology

A twentieth-century borrowing of Old English wiċċa (“male witch”), from Proto-Germanic *wikkô (“sorcerer”); mispronounced as /ˈwɪkə/ instead of the correct /ˈwit.t͡ʃɑ/. The modern use of the term was introduced first as Wica, mentioned briefly in chapter 10 of Gerald Gardner's book Witchcraft Today (1954), as a collective noun ("the Wica"), allegedly used as a self-designation by practitioners of witchcraft. The spelling Wicca, again as a collective noun, was introduced and popularized by Gerald Gardner's later book, The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959).