Elizabeth Witch

Female1702– •218G-31D

English: from Middle English winche ‘winch, pulley’ (Old English wince), later meaning ‘well’, presumably because a winch would have been used to extract water from a well. The surname is probably a topographic name for someone who lived by a well. Compare Wink . This may also be a topographic name denoting someone who lived by a sharp bend in a river or valley, from a transferred sense of winche ‘winch, pulley’. This term and sense appears to be behind some placenames, such as Wincham (Kent) and Winchbottom (Buckinghamshire).

English: habitational name from East and West Winch (Norfolk). The placenames probably derive from Old English winn ‘pasture, meadow’ + wīc ‘dwelling, specialized farmstead’.

English: perhaps also a nickname from a further transferred use of the Middle English word in sense 1 above, for a lapwing (compare Middle English lapwink ‘lapwing’, Old English hlēapewince) or other bird known for its leaping and twisting flight.