Water-witch
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A grebe
"... bird was never seen again, dead or alive. There was a mystery about it , and when some one older and wiser than he told him it was a water witch or hell diver, the mystery was only half solved. Where did it go? How could it stay[…] Fortunately for the dabchick, […]"
- 2 A grebe:; In particular, the pied-billed grebe.
"The Hell Diver seen was probably the Pied Bill Grebe, […] it surely is a water witch and has disappeared."
- 3 The storm petrel. UK, dialectal
"Ten or fifteen dark little birds […] these are "Mother Carey's chickens," the "water-witches," Stormy Petrels, which are so familiar to the eye of the sailor, and the sight of which he dreads so much; […]"
- 4 Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: a witch who lives in, controls, is able to dowse or find, or is otherwise connected with, water.
"[…] plays with the stormy petrel, / And answers the sea-gull's call. […] the water-witch, gray and ancient, / And hearing the tales she tells."
Example
More examples"... bird was never seen again, dead or alive. There was a mystery about it , and when some one older and wiser than he told him it was a water witch or hell diver, the mystery was only half solved. Where did it go? How could it stay[…] Fortunately for the dabchick, […]"
Etymology
Grebes are so called due to their ability to evade hunters and predators by disappearing underwater. Storm petrels are so called due to the folk belief that their arrival foretells approaching storms. Both birds also sometimes walk on water.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.