Word for magic users?

You're likely overthinking this. Harry Potter used "witch" and "wizard" for magic users (and "warlock," which was a more specialized term.) Technically, if you want to dig down, there are differences between the traditional definitions of witchcraft, wizardry, sorcery, and such, but in fantasy you get some leeway.

Of you just want a generic, quick term without the stage-conjuror connotation of "magician," try "mage."

you could call them Charmers if you don't like Witch, or make up your own name create a new title. My witches are witches, but I also have another name for them too, something I made up. Sorry not sharing that tid bit of info I'm hoping to use it in the title.

Witch, wizard, sorcerer, mage, thaumaturge, magician, magic user, warlock, druid, prophet, adept, mancer, spellcaster, caster, etc. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dungeons_&_Dragons_character_classes for more.

I'd suggest coming up with a nickname, though. Thaumaturge could be reduced to 'turge', especially if they're not well though of.

I'm not sure there's a "general term." It will depend on your story. Even within your story there will likely be varied attitudes and perceptions of magic users. To some, witches will be good, and to others, bad. If the word itself is holding you up, go with whatever and then revisit when your story is complete. You might find a better match looking back.

I dont think sorcerer has an overly-specific connotation. I think you could use it. Or maybe the equally generic "magic-user", but that sounds kinda bland.

"Spellbinder" is an old one, but it gets the point across. Or maybe "conjurer."

sorcerer, magician, magi, witch, warlock, charmer, wizard, genie - or if you want just make up your own word for a magical world (you can do that when there's magic involved ya know )

Aside from the above:

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/magician

Good question, I had the same problem when I was creating my world, but like what Brightdreamer said fantasy gives us leeway. Think what it all comes down to it is how are the magic users are classified. If you choose to build your own list of "magic users" just make sure your type up the classes so you have a guide.
My world consists of 5+ different types of magic users.
In my world mages are classified with the ability to conjure defense spells, as for the sorcerers they need a staff to conjure their spells because they focus on mainly on curses/spells that affect a body and attack. Now thinking about it Mages and Sorcerers are like the light and dark side of the force...

CBJason said:

sorcerer, magician, magi, witch, warlock, charmer, wizard, genie - ...

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I find myself compelled to point out that a genie (like a fairy) is not a human being.

Although Barbara Eden was quite fetching as Jeanie. *grin*

Layla Nahar said:

I find myself compelled to point out that a genie (like a fairy) is not a human being.

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*shrug* Infer your own meaning to a word as you see fit, was only going off the suggestions from thesaurus.com's list of synonyms for "magician"...

In my UF world they're mages. Actually, I mushed up some Welsh terms and called them n'anianol hud, which roughly means "natural magic" since my mages are born, not made, but no one uses that in casual conversation.

My colleague and I found a English document from the 1700's recently with an admonishment against necromancers, in this case meaning any practitioner of so-called dark and sinister magics (I assume up to and including midwifery and Papism). Always enjoyed that historically broad use of the term.

I use "wizard" and use it for both male and female (and gender ambiguous) characters.

No matter what, someone somewhere will be offended whether you use the word genie, necromancer, magician, witch, warlock, or whatever...

My 2¢ - use any word you want...no sense trying to please and appease others - it's your book

I like mage myself. Works for both genders.

i use the term Deviant in my story. they are human but since they use magic, they deviate (separate) themselves from regular humanity. LOL

I'm using a lot of Cornish in my King Arthur-inspired story (due to some early myths that placed Camelot somewhere in Cornwall), so I've really taken to the word "peller".
I'm using it to mean "one who drives out (ie. expels) evil spirits".

I also occasionally use "witch" and "wizard," but them's Saxon words (more accurately Saxon that got twisted into Norman and THEN into English). And you don't want to speak Saxon around a Cornovii.

kwanzaabot said:

I'm using a lot of Cornish in my King Arthur-inspired story (due to some early myths that placed Camelot somewhere in Cornwall), so I've really taken to the word "peller".
I'm using it to mean "one who drives out (ie. expels) evil spirits".

I also occasionally use "witch" and "wizard," but them's Saxon words (more accurately Saxon that got twisted into Norman and THEN into English). And you don't want to speak Saxon around a Cornovii.

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Not to derail, but witch/wicce/a wan't at all a Norman word. In fact, the Middle English form is exactly the same as the Old English form; wicce/a.

Wizard is pure late Middle English; not Norman. It's not even attested before c. 1440.

When you say Norman, you are referring to the Norman invaders in the Eleventh century; their language was Norman French. The French that became the lingua franca of the Norman-descended aristocrats in England is called Anglo-Norman; it's it's own dialect of French, with its own literature etc.

This is not meant to rain on your parade, at all, but rather to point out that language choices are tricky.

Even trickier is the fact that the sources you're likely to find regarding Cornish are going to be derived from on of three current attempts to revive Cornish; each of them has taken liberties with what authentic, pre-1600 Cornish was preserved.

As long as we're stickling (one man's pedant is another man's careful researcher...) a genie is not a human being.

AW Admin said:

Not to derail, but witch/wicce/a wan't at all a Norman word. In fact, the Middle English form is exactly the same as the Old English form; wicce/a.

Wizard is pure late Middle English; not Norman. It's not even attested before c. 1440.

When you say Norman, you are referring to the Norman invaders in the Eleventh century; their language was Norman French. The French that became the lingua franca of the Norman-descended aristocrats in England is called Anglo-Norman; it's it's own dialect of French, with its own literature etc.

This is not meant to rain on your parade, at all, but rather to point out that language choices are tricky.

Even trickier is the fact that the sources you're likely to find regarding Cornish are going to be derived from on of three current attempts to revive Cornish; each of them has taken liberties with what authentic, pre-1600 Cornish was preserved.

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No, but "wizard" at least is a Modern English take on a Middle English word ("wys" meaning "wise") that in turn is a take on the original Old English word ("wīs"), with some Old French ("ard") being thrown in for good measure. But that's one hell of a mouthful. I didn't think it was worth including in my original post.

I guess I could say "wiseman" since that's probably a more accurate translation of what it'd be in Old English, but... eh. Boring.

As for the Cornish, since it's derived from a branch of Celtic spoken by a tribe we know virtually nothing about, I think under the circumstances, "modern Cornish" is better than "no Cornish".

As "witch" goes there is no moden taboo against using it but there are certain common modern uses of it that are dominant:

* As a generic but specifically female counterpart to wizard (male) (see: Harry Potter, Discworld)
* A person who practices "traditional" witchcraft (akin to how modern practitioners of Wicca/witchcraft as a religion see it). Herblore, charms, shamanism and household magic. If they are accepted in society they may play the role of the village doctor/midwife. Also usually female. (Also see Discworld.) May or may not involve dark magic but any witches dabbling in it will be looked on with suspicion.
* A pejorative used by superstitious people against people acting strange in ways that may or may not be magical (with the possible implication of threat that witch burning is not out the question). Also usually female.

There are no lack of books being written about any of these. Trying to use "witch" as a term outside these definitions might come off as awkward though. What has been deprecated somewhat is the generic use of "witch" to mean evil female magic user (see: Wicked Witch of the West, the evil queen from Snow White) unless you are working directly with fairy-tale material. That does not mean there aren't evil witches still written about but where they exist they tend to be balanced by good witches.

"Warlock" is sometimes thought of as the male counterpart of a traditional witch but I'm not sure I've ever seen that borne out in fantasy. Where I've seen it it does tend to have more direct "dark magic" associations.

For generic terms, I default to mage. Sorcerer and witch/wizard (wizard can also be female) are the next most generic. After that things start getting more specific. Also, -mancer and -mancy are handy as suffixes if you need to invent a branch of magic (necromancer, pyromancer, geomancer...).

When I was growing up, there was this old Greek temple looking building in my town. It felt completely out of place, considering that I grew up in a very rural southern small-town. I'd never seen anyone go into the building, nor did I ever seen any sign of inhabitants at all. I wondered forever what the building might be, and eventually when the internet became more widespread I was able to look it up. It was an abandoned Oddfellow hall, which was a fraternal order akin to the Freemasons. For some reason, that term always stuck with me. I'd always imagined them as some sort of wizards. Hence, the magic users in my book are called Oddfellows.

So basically, it can be anything you want! Try drawing on past experiences and seeing if there is anything that gives you that sort of mystical feel that comes to mind.

I was about to disagree with you on the use of witch because of my personal experience, but then I realized that I rarely use the term witch, too. I think out of all of my stories with witches, I didn't change the name like once. Hence why I think there's not really a common one, and if there is its still witches. People are just using other names to make it more specific to their worlds, maybe?