女巫(nǚ wū) - witch, sorceress in Mandarin

女巫 (nǚ wū) is the standard translation of witch, and it is where Chinese editions of fairy tales, Macbeth and Harry Potter land. The male counterpart is 男巫 or 巫师, and 巫婆 is the older, uglier version: hooked nose, cauldron, no sympathy from the narrator.

Because 巫 is the native word for a shaman, the compound reaches back further than the storybook sense. In writing about early Chinese religion 女巫 means a female spirit-medium, a serious ritual office rather than a villain.

The trap is the tone of 女. It is third tone (nǚ) with the umlaut vowel, so in pinyin typing you enter nv or nu:. Say it as nu and you have produced a different sound entirely. Note too that Chinese needs no article, so 一个女巫 or bare 女巫 both do the work of a witch.