warlock

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warlock

1. a man who practises black magic; sorcerer
2. a fortune-teller, conjuror, or magician

Warlock

Peter, real name Philip Arnold Heseltine. 1894--1930, British composer and scholar of early English music. His works include song cycles, such as The Curlew (1920--22), and the Capriol Suite (1926) for strings
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Warlock

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

From the Scottish and Old English waerloga, meaning traitor or oath-breaker, warlock is a term that has been applied to a male witch but is never used by Witches themselves.

During the persecutions, when witches were being tortured and questioned, the inquisitors were especially anxious to learn of other witches in the community. To this end many witches were harshly and repeatedly tortured to obtain this information. When a person broke down under the pain and anguish and gave out names of others, he would be termed a warlock by those he gave away.

Pennethorne Hughes mentions that when a tortured witch seemed likely to give away others, he or she might be murdered in jail by the other witches, to prevent additional arrests and tortures. To show that the killing had been done under those circumstances, a garter would be left tied loosely around the victim's throat. The 1618 murder of John Stewart of Irving is one example, as is that of John Reid of Renfrewshire in 1696.

The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism © 2002 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
Sabrina lives with her fun-loving Aunt Hilda (Lucy Davis), the pragmatic Aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto), and her gay cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo), who runs the Spellmans' mortuary business when he's not locking lips with warlock Luke (Darren Mann).
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While witches, warlocks and Harry Potter characters were left out of the parade at the Medowie school, the characters that were allowed in the parade included Anakin Skywalker, The Mad Hatter and the Gingerbread Man.
Sheen had referred to himself as a "Vatican assassin warlock" during a radio interview, which angered members of the Coven of the Raven Moon in Salem, Mass.
Hollywood's bad-boy star may have made headlines declaring himself a tiger-blood drinking warlock, but Llangollen's Cerwyn Jones is the real deal.
Workshops will ensure that the youngsters get to have fun at Halloween by dressing up as witches, warlocks, ghosts and vampires.
This cone is often symbolised in the conical hat worn by witches and warlocks of old.
I FIRST MET the 25-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Ashley of the Oakland group Gris Gris last fall in Seattle while they were on tour with the Warlocks. We sat back stage in one of the club's bland dressing rooms, while a reserved yet polite Ashley described his formative years in the suburbs of Houston, finding redemption in the Oakland music scene, and his unbothered approach to songwriting and recording.
The Warlocks - Surgery (Mute) HHHH Cosmic drone rock with knobs on, drenched in feedback and fuzz, dripping with narcotic melodies and churning guitars that bring together the Velvets and Mary Chain to send shivers down the spine.
He's also an old hand at portraying charlatan preachers: Curtis got his big break as producer of the 1960s supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, which featured a series of evil clergymen aligned with witches and warlocks. Still, the real priests in Our Fathers--creeping into little boys' rooms to fondle them during bedtime prayers, offering teenagers ice cream in exchange for oral sex and absolution--are much scarier.