the.com/broomstick

means The long wooden handle of a broom — and, in folklore and fiction, the preferred vehicle for airborne witches.

from A straightforward compound: 'broom' plus 'stick,' describing literally the stick part of a broom. 'Broom' itself comes from the plant — broom shrubs, with their tough, springy twigs, were bundled and used as sweeping tools, and the plant's name simply transferred to the object made from it. The witch connection is folklore, not etymology: European witch trials and peasant tales from the medieval and early modern periods describe women anointing staffs or brooms with ointment and 'flying' to sabbaths, likely tangled up with real domestic objects, hallucinogenic salves, and fears about women who lived alone and swept their own hearths.