sorcerer: [16] A sorcerer is etymologically a drawer of ‘lots’ – for the word comes ultimately from Latin sors ‘lot’ (source also of English sort). The plural sortēs was used for the ‘responses made by oracles’, and this formed the basis of the Vulgar Latin noun *sortārius ‘priest of the oracle’, hence ‘caster of spells’. It passed into English via Old French sorcier as sorser, which was later extended to sorcerer. => sort
early 15c., "conjurer of evil spirits," displacing earlier sorcer (late 14c.), 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; perhaps the modern form of the word is back-formed from sorcery. Sorcerer's apprentice 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 (1952) comes after Disney's "Fantasia" (1940).
