witchfindern.
/ˈwɪtʃˌfʌɪndə/, U.S. /ˈwɪtʃˌfaɪndər/ 1. A person who searches for evidence against people suspected or accused of witchcraft; a person employed to identify suspected witches. Cf. witch-hunter n. 1. Now historical.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > sorcerer or magician > witch > [noun] > witch-hunt > action of > one who
witch-hunter1618
witchfinder1646
1646 J. Gaule Select Cases Conscience 6 To save the trouble and Charges of the witch-finder, they will undertake to try the Witch of themselves.
1647 M. Hopkins (title) The Discovery of Witches..now published by Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder. For the Benefit of the whole Kingdome.
1797 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 876/1 Want of tears was, by the witch-finders,..considered as a very substantial proof of guilt.
1855 E. Smedley et al. Occult Sci. 169 Dr. Harsnett..exposed the pretensions of the celebrated exorcist and witch-finder, Darrel.
1995 C. Sagan Demon-haunted World vii. 120 In Britain witch-finders, also called ‘prickers’, were employed, receiving a handsome bounty for each girl or woman they turned over for execution.
2. In southern and eastern Africa: a traditional healer and diviner who is said to be able to detect whether a person or thing has been bewitched. Cf. witch doctor n. 1b.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > non-European magic (miscellaneous) > [noun] > sorcerer or medicine man > African witch-doctor
witch doctor1817
witchfinder1833
witch doctress1834
ngaka1871
sangoma1893
1833 Graham's Town Jrnl. (S. Afr.) 8 Aug. 3 At the kraal where I belong, a man..was very ill with a pain in his head, when the people of the place sent for an ‘Iqika’ (witchfinder)..to come and see the man.
1892 H. R. Haggard Nada the Lily ii. 12 I saw that the witch-finders and the medicine-men were feared in the land.
1981 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 3 Feb. People identified as witches by witch doctors and witch finders are often murdered, Zimbabwe's African Nganga (spirit healer) Association said in a statement yesterday.
2011 S. A. Langwick Bodies, Politics, & Afr. Healing ii. 41 Initiation specialists, wakulungwa, and witch-finders negotiated with disembodied entities in invisible realms and/or had knowledge of dawa (medicine, in the broadest sense of the word).
Compounds
Witchfinder General n. (also with lower-case initials) (a) (a title for) a high-ranking witchfinder (in sense 1; see note); (b) depreciative (a mock title for) a person who relentlessly seeks out and persecutes people for (supposed) wrongdoings, inadequacies, etc. (cf. witch-hunter n. 2).In sense (a) originally as the title assumed by Matthew Hopkins, 17th-cent. English witchfinder (see quot. 1647); cf. general adj. 8a.
ΚΠ
1647 M. Hopkins Discov. of Witches (frontispiece) Matthew Hopkins, Witch Finder Generall.
1849 H. Mayhew & A. S. Mayhew Magic of Kindness xiii. 108 The Chief of the Council bade the guard go and summon before them the Witch-Finder-General.
1954 N.Y. Times 4 June 18/4 We have seen many self-appointed Witch Finder Generals on our scene. We have seen them bring processes of law into disrepute by substituting the tactics of the smear for the fair trial.
1968 Irish Times 26 Nov. 16/4 Mr. Childers has now apparently acquired the position as Witchfinder General for the outdated and discredited Fianna Fail regime.
2000 Independent on Sunday 2 Apr. i. 3/3 Paganism is enjoying a modern-day revival some 500 years after the witchfinder general first began killing suspected witches.
2005 Amer. Prospect (Nexis) Oct. 41 The emboldened medium [of TV] would expose and topple the most fearsome Communist-hunter of all, America's grand inquisitor and witch-finder general, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1646