The Saucepan Man wrote:
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I think therefore that (surprisingly) JRRT was using the word in its looser sense, simply to convey that Sauron's powers were linked with death and the ability to command the spirits of the dead.
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lindil wrote:
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He used the word, I think [remember it is in the Hobbit only] in it's more generic 'wizardly' sense. I imagine he liked the sound of it, for his purposes.
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Saucepan Man, I appreciate your reasoning. Continuing the argument: If he did want to convey the "looser" meaning of the word, is there any other word you can think of that would have worked? Would he still have been relying on its original connotations? And lindil, it sounds like you're both leaning toward the same hypothesis. But are you implying that Tolkien merely intended to convey the impression of some evil wizard sort of guy?
Furthermore, when first reading
The Hobbit the title of the Necromancer did not imply (to me) the great evil that was Sauron. Instead, it seemed to underestimate him - to downplay his might. Yes, you would probably want to avoid Southern Mirkwood, but it sounded similar to giving the neighborhood witch's house a wide berth. (Assuming, of course, that the witch actually did have some kind of power, and not just merely the force of superstition, which I do not want to involve in this discussion.)