sorcerer

views updated

sorcerer a person who claims or is believed to have magic powers; a wizard. Recorded from late Middle English, the word comes ultimately, via Old French, from Latin sors, sort- ‘lot, fortune’.
sorcerer's apprentice a person who instigates a process or project which they are then unable to control without assistance. The phrase is a translation of French l'apprentit sorcier, the title of a symphonic poem by Paul Dukas (1897), after der Zauberlehrling, a ballad by Goethe (1797), in which the apprentice through the use of spells instigates processes which he cannot control.

More From encyclopedia.com