Etymology Inherited from Middle English lich, from Old English līċ, from Proto-West Germanic *līk, from Proto-Germanic *līką, from Proto-Indo-European *leyg-.
1
Fantasy A reanimated corpse or undead being; particularly an intelligent, undead spellcaster.
Roleplaying games
It was a lich’s face – desiccated flesh tight over its skull.1974, Karl Edward Wagner, Sticks:
[…] and that, as the chronicle states, a lich-way would be made through then, assembled his servants, and attempted to stop its progress as it was carried over a bridge. A scuffle ensued, and the body was thrown into the water. The lich-way as not made ; but the Bishop of Exeter amply revenged himself for the proceedings.1845, Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, page 35:
She saw him again that eventide, but then he was a reddened lich.1983, Poul Anderson, Time Patrolman (Sci-Fi), →ISBN:
1386-90, John Gower, Confessio Amantis. Anon he let two cofres make / Of one semblance, and of one make, / So lich, that no lif thilke throwe, / That one may fro that other knowe.
[He] rather joy'd to be than seemen sich, For both to be and seeme to him was labour lich.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 29: