Magic and sorcery in old Polish lexicology

Abstract

In the article the lexical units were analysed and put together with the semantic category – SORCERY (CZARY). The gathered written material was collected from all available lexicographical sources registering the vocabulary to the end of 19th century. As an addendum with the additional archaic texts the aforementioned lexemes were examined. It turned out that the analysed words concentrated around three fields coupled together with magic and its application; for example: activity, glance and the words. The specific places of wordforms in indicated categories were not constant. Several times it occured that seemingly stable formations changed completely its semantic content in the meaning. The processes referred to were investigated in the article. The dominating method in herein sketch is the analysis of contexts in which were grouped words from semantic field – SORCERY (CZARY) in the history of Polish language. Upon the evidence of such usage of particular word in the dictionaries registering old Polish vernacular the meaning value of it was considered in a given time.