Definition of "witchery"
witchery
noun
countable and uncountable, plural witcheries
(uncountable) Witchcraft.
Quotations
You are right to some extent in what you say. In the olden days people had a stronger belief in all kinds of witchery; now they pretend not to believe in it, that they may be looked upon as sensible and educated people, as you say.
1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], translated by H. L. Brækstad, Round the Yule Log. Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, page 156
They are determined that I shall be burnt as a witch; and they sent their doctor to cure me; but he was forbidden to bleed me because the silly people believe that a witch’s witchery leaves her if she is bled; so he only called me filthy names.
1923 December 28 (first performance), [George] Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play […], London: Constable and Company, published 1924, scene vi, page 79
(countable) An act of witchcraft.
(uncountable, figuratively) Allure, charm, magic.
Quotations
At noon, when by the forest's edge / He lay beneath the branches high, / The soft blue sky did never melt / Into his heart,—he never felt / The witchery of the soft blue sky!
1798 (date written), William Wordsworth, “Part First”, in Peter Bell, a Tale in Verse, London: […] Strahan and Spottiswoode, […]; for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], published 1819, page 20
I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win.
1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XXIV, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […]
He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine.
1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter XVII, in The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields