pentacle

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“
Scott quotes thus from Reginald Scott's 'Discovery of Witchcraft' (1665 A pentacle is a piece of fine linen, folded with five corners, according to the five senses, and suitably inscribed with characters.

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Definitions (4)

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  1. noun A five-pointed star, often held to have magical or mystical significance, formed by five straight lines connecting the vertices of a pentagon and enclosing another pentagon in the completed figure. Also called pentagram.

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Examples (50)

  • It was an odd one, requiring a pentacle (a five-pointed star), a candle, and spoken words. —  Question Quest
  • He pretended to be confined to the bottle and to the pentacle, though by our agreement neither was tight; it was for show so that the visitors wouldn't be terrified by the manifestation of a genuine demon. —  Question Quest
  • Candles were set on the ground at his feet and a pentacle was drawn in the dirt. —  The Twelfth Card
  • Know that neither the bottle nor the pentacle constrained me; I but honored these conventions to please the Magician, to whom I owed professional courtesy. —  The Source of Magic
  • Then a gold-inlaid pentacle, a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle—the symbol of the forces of magic contained within mortal will. —  Butcher, Jim - Dead Beat (v1.0) (html).html
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Medieval Latin *pentāculum : Greek penta-, penta- + Latin -culum, diminutive suff.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also penticle; from Old French pentacle, pantacle, a pentacle (in magic), a candlestick with five branches, as if from Greek πέντε, five; but prob. orig. ‘a pendant,’ cf. Old French pente, a pendant, hanging, slope, etc., from pendre, hang: see pendant, pendent. As applied to a magical figure, prob. wrested from pentangle (see pentangle), perhaps confused (as if ‘an amulet‘) with Old French pentacol, pend a col, a trinket hung from the neck, a pendant (from pendre, hang, + a, on, + col, neck).
 

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/ˈpɛntəkl/
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