Warlock comes from Old English wǣrloga ('oath-breaker, deceiver, devil'), a compound of wǣr ('faith, covenant') and loga ('liar', from leogan 'to lie'); later applied to a male witch. The historical chain includes Old English wǣrloga, Old English wǣr, and Old English leogan. The quoted older senses, "oath-breaker, deceiver, devil", "faith, covenant", "liar", and "to lie", supply the semantic anchors for warlock. The formation is best read as compound and borrowed: the word warlock carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a man who practices witchcraft; a male sorcerer". English derivatives include warlockry. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.