A twentieth-century borrowing ofOld Englishwiċċa(“malewitch”) (fromProto-West Germanic*wikkō(“sorcerer”)) with aspelling pronunciation. The modern use of the term was introduced first asWica,[1] mentioned briefly in chapter 10 of Gerald Gardner's bookWitchcraft Today (1954), as a collective noun ("the Wica"), allegedly used as a self-designation by practitioners of witchcraft. The spellingWicca, again as a collective noun, was introduced and popularized by Gerald Gardner's later book,The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959).
Wicca
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