warlock

Meaning

Noun

• A male magic-user; a male witch.

Origin

• From Middle English warloghe, warlowe, warloȝe, from Old English wǣrloga ("traitor, deceiver"), from wǣr (from Proto-Indo-European *weh₁- ("true"); whence also Latin vērus) + loga, from Proto-Germanic *lugô, related to Old English lēogan (whence English lie). The hard -ck ending originated in Scottish and Northern English, like the sense "male magic-user" (from the notion that such men were in league with the Devil and had thus broken their baptismal vows / betrayed Christianity). Cognate with Old High German wārlogo ("truce-breaker, traitor").
• A few writers alternatively propose derivation from Old Norse varðlokkur ("caller of spirits"), but as the OED notes, this is implausible due to the extreme rarity of the Norse word and because forms without hard -k, which are consistent with the Old English etymology (“traitor”), are attested earlier than forms with -k, and forms with -ð- are not attested.