Talk:widdershins

Wicca

Wicca? I'm familiar with the term from Discworld, so it surprises me to see it's primarily used in Wicca (as opposed to just an archaic term for counterclockwise). Can someone source this? -- 22:55, 29 March 2014 71.201.72.124

It was added by a user known for dubious edits. I've removed it. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

My familiarity with the term is from fantasy that uses it as a mystical word; much ceremonial magic in those books is done widdershins. https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=widdershins&gws_rd=ssl shows quite clearly to me the use of the word as the title of books about magic, "The Witches of Widdershins Academy", for example, or Widdershins ("The story unfolds with Christina's introduction into the black arts by a mysterious benefactor that she meets in a wooded grove.") or Widdershins ("Widdershins is about a shadow world — the otherworld, the realm of spirits — that exists, unseen, side by side with our own world.") We get the World of Numbers on the second page, but we also get The Wiccan Wellness Book ("I like to carry the incense widdershins around the room (widdershins being the direction of banishing)").--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:39, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Dion Fortune

If she wrote this, she didn't write it in 2011, since she died in 1946... AnonMoos (talk) 11:18, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

OED 1st edition

In the OED 1st edition, it's listed under "Withershins" (with "Widdershins" the alternative form), and the two senses listed are "wrong way" (obsolete as of the OED publication) and "In a direction contrary to the apparent course of the sun (considered as unlucky or causing disaster)" -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

RFC discussion: February 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

widdershins; withershins

Either widdershins or withershins needs to be made the lemma, duplicated content from the other entry relocated to the lemma, and the other entry converted to an alternative form entry. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Google Ngrams suggests that widdershins should be the main entry. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:45, 17 February 2021 (UTC)