sorcerie

Sorcerie entered English from Old French in the fourteenth century, from sorcier (sorcerer), from Vulgar Latin *sortiarius (one who casts lots), from Latin sors (lot, fate, fortune). The original sorcerer was a fortune-teller — someone who threw dice, drew tokens, or cast marked sticks to determine what the gods had decreed. The practice was divinatory, not transformative. The sorcerer read fate. He did not bend it.

The meaning expanded as the word traveled. By the time sorcery entered English, it covered the full range of supernatural practice: divination, spell-casting, potion-making, conjuring spirits, and cursing enemies. The lot-caster had become the wizard. The distinction between divination and active magic, clear in the Latin original, had collapsed in the vernacular word.

English criminal law treated sorcery as a real crime. The Witchcraft Acts of 1542, 1563, and 1604 criminalized various forms of sorcery, conjuring, and enchantment. The 1604 act, passed under James I, made consorting with evil spirits a capital offense. The witch trials that followed — including the Salem trials of 1692 — used 'sorcery' and 'witchcraft' interchangeably, though some scholars distinguish them: witchcraft is innate power, sorcery is learned technique.

Modern English uses 'sorcery' as a slightly more literary synonym for 'magic.' Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice (from the Fantasia segment, itself from Goethe's poem) is the most famous modern use. The word has lost its criminal associations entirely. Nobody is prosecuted for sorcery in Western countries. The Latin lot-caster became a medieval criminal became a Disney character. The word's journey is its own kind of transformation.