Mage

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /meɪd͡ʒ/

Definitions

1. A person who engages in the manipulation of mystical forces and often wields extraordinary powers
2. An individual adept at invoking spells and harnessing arcane energies, typically found in literature and myth
3. A practitioner of sorcery who utilizes supernatural abilities to perform magical feats and conjure various phenomena

Etymology: The English noun "mage" is older than most readers would guess as a word for a wizard, because it arrived as a plural. Middle English speakers borrowed "mages" as a plural-only form, referring to the Magi, the learned priests of ancient Persia who were visited by the Bethlehem star-followers in the Christian tradition. The singular "mage" came later, built from that plural, so the word was a backformation of sorts: English treated the ending as if it were a plural marker and created a singular from it. The Latin "magus" that lies behind it came from Ancient Greek "Mágos," which in turn was borrowed from Old Persian "maguš," a word that appears only once in the surviving record. Its exact meaning in Persian is debated, but the Greeks used it for the priestly class whose reputation for dream interpretation and star-reading made them famous across the classical world. The Greek and Latin forms gave English "magus" as a doublet, a second form of the same word that entered by a different route. From that priestly sense, "mage" drifted toward the sense of a sorcerer and then toward a figure of fantasy power, a meaning that grew strongest in the modern period.

Synonyms: sorcerer, wizard, magician, enchanter, warlock

Antonyms: muggle, non-magical person