Word of the Week – Wicked

With the proliferation of the book, musical, and movie Wicked, I thought it would be fun to look at the history of the word. (Okay, so in fact, I saw a fun article on it on www.EtymOnline.com and that 100% inspired me to borrow the topic, LOL. Click the link to read their very thorough explanation! This is a muuuuuuch shorter version.)

Did you know that wicked witch is actually redundant? They are, in fact, different modern spellings of the SAME Old English word. In Old English, we had the word wicca, the feminine version of which was wicce, which was pronounced like “witch.” Both spellings meant “witch,” and there was also the adjective wick to describe them, meaning “bad, evil, false.”

So why that -ed ending? That’s one of the things that make etymologists smile…or shake their head. The -ed ending implies a past tense verb, but in fact there never was a verb. Wicked, however, developed as if there had been that action word.

The words wicked and witch have of course been separated for many hundreds of years at this point, so it’s reasonable for modern speakers to put them together again for emphasis and to separate them from “good” witches like we see in The Wizard of Oz. Of course, theologians insist that “good witch” is an oxymoron. 😉 But in the realm of fiction, we can appreciate the choice between using power (of any source) for good versus evil.

Have you read or watched Wicked? I confess I’ve yet to see any of the productions, either film or stage. I have the book but haven’t yet read it…I’ve heard, er, conflicting reports on it, LOL.

*This is an affiliate link. If you purchase this product from this link, I will receive a small commission.

Word Nerds Merch!