Other forms: wizards
A wizard is a man with magical powers. A wizard in a pointed hat, the wizard's tower, a wizard duel.
It sits in a family that English keeps deliberately blurry. A wizard is learned and usually old, a sorcerer is powerful and often sinister, a magician may be either or may just do card tricks, and a warlock is a male witch and always malevolent. Fantasy fiction has fixed most of these into roles. Note the informal sense meaning somebody very good at something — a wizard with an engine — and the software sense: a wizard is a step-by-step guide through a setup.
1nounwizardA man with magical powers.
“The wizard lives at the top of the tower.”
2nounskilledSomebody very skilled at something.
“He is a wizard with anything mechanical.”
3nounstepA step-by-step guide in a computer program.
“The setup wizard does most of it for you.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
wizard is a worker of magic.
Middle English wysard is wise plus the -ard ending that also gives drunkard and coward — usually a slightly disparaging suffix. A wizard was originally a wise man, and specifically one people were unsure about.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyd-
Middle English
wysard
English, today
wizard
From Middle English wysard, wysarde, equivalent to wise + -ard. A uniquely medieval English word with no known morphologically exact cognates in other Germanic languages; did not gain distinct sense of "occultist, magic user" (as opposed to a philosopher or sage) until 1500s, aligning roughly with the starting English Renaissance. However, via weyd- cognate with Proto-Celtic druwits (whence English druid), Proto-Slavic vědьma (Polish wiedźma, Russian ве́дьма), Russian веду́н. The sense of "old (male) virgin" is from a Japanese Internet meme in which virgins who are typically friendless, shy outcasts and loners who don't fit in anywhere legendarily gain magical powers upon reaching 30 years of age; popularized ultimately by 4chan and adjacent online incel spaces.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA