sorcerer n.

early 15c., "conjurer of spirits, one who uses magic arts in divination," an extended form of earlier sorcer (late 14c.), which is from Old French sorcier, from Medieval Latin sortarius "teller of fortunes by lot; sorcerer" (also source of Spanish sortero, Italian sortiere; see sorcery).

With superfluous -er, as in poulterer, upholsterer, caterer, sophister. Sorcerer also might be back-formed from sorcery, or influenced by it.

Always with more or less a suggestion of evil. Sorcerer's apprentice as a figure of one who unleashes forces he cannot control translates l'apprenti sorcier, title of a symphonic poem by Paul Dukas (1897) based on a Goethe ballad ("Der Zauberlehrling," 1797), but the common figurative use of the term in English (1952) arises only after Disney's "Fantasia" (1940).