warlock

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /ˈwɔrlɑk/ UK /ˈwɔːlɒk/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a man who practices witchcraft; a male sorcerer

Legend told of a warlock who could summon storms with a whisper.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a man who practices... sorcerer wizard magician conjurer enchanter necromancer

Opposites

witch

Word family

Derived forms warlockry

Simplified etymology

Warlock comes from Old English wær-loga, formed from words associated with an “agreement” or “promise” and with “denying.” It originally meant an evil person, traitor, monster, savage, or the Devil; the sense “sorcerer” arose in Scotland and became widely known through Sir Walter Scott in the early 19th century.

Etymology

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.

wǣrloga Old English wǣr Old English leogan Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# warlock

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈwɔrlɑk/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈwɔːlɒk/

## Meanings
1. a man who practices witchcraft; a male sorcerer

## Examples
- Legend told of a warlock who could summon storms with a whisper.

## Synonyms
- sorcerer
- wizard
- magician
- conjurer
- enchanter
- necromancer

## Antonyms
- witch

## Derived Forms
- warlockry

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: wǣrloga
- Root: wǣr
- Root: leogan

## Etymology
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.

## AI Etymology
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.

## Topics
- People & Society

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