warlock [OE] A warlock is not connected with war or locks, and was not originally anything to do with magic. To the Anglo-Saxons a wær-loga was ‘an evil person, traitor’, ‘monster, savage’, and ‘the Devil’. The sense ‘sorcerer, wizard’ was originally Scottish, and only became more widely known when it was used by the novelist Sir Walter Scott in the early 19th century. It comes from Old English words meaning ‘agreement, promise’ and ‘deny’. See also witch.