How do you pronounce warlock?

The recorded pronunciation is /ˈwɔɹ.lɑk/.

Where does warlock come from?

It is traced to Middle English.

/ˈwɔɹ.lɑk/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.99 in modern English

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noun

noun

"He was himself a warlock, or wizard, which they knew by his taking the witch's part."
"It was the day of warlocks and apparitions, now happily driven out by the zeal of the General Assembly."
"“Is it because she was a warlock?” she asked. “I know different kinds of magic . . .” “No, that's not it, or at least . . .” Mereth paused, collecting her thoughts, then explained, “The warlockry doesn't help, Lady Sarai,[…]”"
"It seemed like a strange thing for her to risk on a student she barely knew—but then, she was a warlock. Simon had no idea what they were capable of, but he was getting better at imagining."
"Usually she blended in with the rest of the Academy faculty, making it easy to forget she was a warlock (at least, if you overlooked the blue skin). But he'd noticed that whenever another Downworlder was on campus, Catarina went out[…]"
"“We're also looking for a couple of warlocks,” Magnus said. “A Korean woman and a green fellow with horns.” “Oh,” said Fang with a distinct change of mood. “Them.” “You've seen them?” Alec said, trying not to sound too eager."

From Middle English warloghe, warlowe, warloȝe, from Old English wǣrloga (“traitor, deceiver”, literally “truce-breaker”), from Proto-West Germanic *wārulogō (“liar”), equivalent to Old English wǣr (“covenant, truce, pact, promise”) (from Proto-Indo-European *weh₁- (“true”); whence also Latin vērus) + loga (“liar”), 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 Saxon wārlogo (“liar, unfaithful or insidious one”). A few writers alternatively propose a derivation from Old Norse varðlokkur (“incantations, charms”, literally “ward songs”), but as the OED notes, this is implausible due to the extreme rarity of the Norse word, the semantic difference, 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.

warlocks (plural) warluck (alternative) warlow (alternative)

warlocky