Sorcery

How to spell sorcery

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce sorcery

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sorcery mean?

1. nounThe supposed use of magical powers, often drawing on evil spirits, to influence events.

Sorcery in a sentence

• The novel blends courtroom drama with tales of ancient sorcery.

• Villagers once blamed failed harvests on sorcery rather than poor weather.

Where does sorcery come from?

Language of origin: French

Sorcery reaches English through Old French sorcerie, a noun built on sorcier, meaning 'a sorcerer'. The deeper root is the Vulgar Latin sortiarius, literally 'one who tells fortunes by lots', which in turn comes from the Latin sors (in its stem form sortem), meaning 'lot, chance, or fate'. The original idea was therefore not wand-waving magic but divining the future by drawing lots, and that same sors lies behind the everyday words 'sort' and 'consort'. English adopted sorcery in the 1300s, by which time it had broadened to mean the use of supernatural power, especially with the aid of evil spirits. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the soft 'cer' is pronounced like a plain 's', so writers must remember the inner c, and the ending is -ery rather than -ary.

How the word is built

• sorcer- (from Old French sorcier: one who casts lots or spells)
• -y (noun-forming suffix)