#the word warlock comes from Old English Waerloga

[21st-century-minutiae]

Dungeons and Dragons is a popular twentieth century, early twenty-first century fantasy tabletop roleplaying game. Players play characters of a certain "classes" (which are essentially jobsets). There are a great deal of classes in D&D which focus on magical abilities in distinct manners. Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks are all magic using classes, but they all play in different ways and have different explanations for their magic use, based off of different fantasy tropes.

Wizards in D&D are people who study magic, who put their time and education into mastering the arcane through scholastic achievement and direct experimentation.

Sorcerers in D&D are people with a magical bloodline, who have an inborn talent for the arcane. There is often an element of random chance involved, and lack of full control over their power.

Warlocks in D&D are people who have made a pinding pact with some magical being (like a demon, a devil, or an archfae), and in exchange for some contractual requirements, they are empowered with magic.

Because of the cultural dominance of D&D, these particular tropes and definitions have been codified in the popular mindset, even though there is no explicit definitional link between these particular words and these particular usages except in the game.

Wizard is an English word coming from "Wise" and the suffix "ard" (seen in Drunkard and Coward). It means a magic individual.

Sorcerer is an English word coming for the Latin "Sors" meaning "lot" (in the gambling sense, such as drawing lots) or "something determined by chance." It is a synonym for Wizard.

Warlock is an English word coming from the old English Waerloga, meaning traitor, scoundrel, or someone who works for the Devil. Waerloga, in turn, comes from "covenant" and "breaker" as in, a person who cheats on contracts. It has come to be a synonym for Wizard.

D&D differentiation is based on these etymological roots and has helped to codify the words in the language.

People who treat D&D's classes as like being in any way representative of fiction outside of D&D are my nemesis, I just saw a post that was like "remember the difference between a Sorcerer a Warlock and a Wizard is this" and treating like those words as if their very D&D specific meanings were like universally accepted I'm going to start taking hostages

[nine-effing-hells]

On Etymology

So I was thinking about D&D the other day, and something occurred to me: considering where the word comes from, the implementation of Warlocks in 5e is kinda hilarious? Like “Okay, so I’ve made this class that’s based around making a pact with a powerful entity, and you get various boons from drawing on this pact.” “Cool! What’s it called?” “Oathbreaker.”

Now if I were such an eldritch patron, I’d be pretty damn nervous about all this!

[starweird03]

There are some fun etymological differences though!

“Witch” comes from Old English “wicca” (m)/“wicce” (f), from proto-Germanic “wikko” (sorcerer).

Wizard comes from “wise” and “-ard”. A wizard is to wisdom what a drunkard is to drunkenness.

Warlock comes from Old English “waerloga”, meaning “deceiver” or “oath breaker”.

None of the words are directly related etymologically, so yeah, it’s not really accurate to say that a warlock is “just a male witch” in the context of conjugation.

So growing up I read that being called a wizard or warlock instead of witch when you practice the craft is disrespectful? Was what I read wrong or is it just for a certain section of people who practice the craft that believe that?

No that's dumb and made up