warlock
/ˈwɔː.lɒk/
"warlock" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“warlock” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #29,515 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #29,515
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A male magic-user; a male witch; a wizard.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | warlock |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɔː.lɒk/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #29,515 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “warlock” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for warlock is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɔː.lɒk/. Corpus data places it at rank #29,515 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for warlock, with forms such as "awrlock", "walrock", and "warlcok". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "Warwick", "warlord", "wedlock", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English warloghe, warlowe, warloȝe, from Old English wǣrloga (“traitor, deceiver”, literally “truce-breaker”), from Proto-West Germanic *wārulogō (“liar”), equivalent to Old English wǣr (“covenant, truce, pact, promise”) (from Proto-Indo-Europea… The correct English form is warlock, spelled W-A-R-L-O-C-K.
Definition
- 1A male magic-user; a male witch; a wizard.
- 2A magic-user (regardless of gender).
Etymology
From Middle English warloghe, warlowe, warloȝe, from Old English wǣrloga (“traitor, deceiver”, literally “truce-breaker”), from Proto-West Germanic *wārulogō (“liar”), equivalent to Old English wǣr (“covenant, truce, pact, promise”) (from Proto-Indo-European *weh₁- (“true”); whence also Latin vērus) + loga (“liar”), from Proto-Germanic *lugô, related to Old English lēogan (whence English lie). The hard -ck ending originated in Scottish and Northern English, like the sense "male magic-user" (from the notion that such men were in league with the Devil and had thus broken their baptismal vows / betrayed Christianity). Cognate with Old Saxon wārlogo (“liar, unfaithful or insidious one”). A few writers alternatively propose a derivation from Old Norse varðlokkur (“incantations, charms”, literally “ward songs”), but as the OED notes, this is implausible due to the extreme rarity of the Norse word, the semantic difference, and because forms without hard -k, which are consistent with the Old English etymology (“traitor”), are attested earlier than forms with -k, and forms with -ð- are not attested.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: awrlock,walrock,warlcok,warllock,warlocck,warlockk,warlokc,warolck,warrlock,wralock,wwarlock
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of warlock - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “warlock”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-A-R-L-O-C-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈwɔː.lɒk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Warwick” - see the side-by-side comparison. warlock vs Warwick
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.