legerdemain

American  

[lej-er-duh-meyn] / ˌlɛdʒ ər dəˈmeɪn /

noun

1. sleight of hand.

2. trickery; deception.

3. any artful trick.

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legerdemain British  

/ ˌlɛdʒədəˈmeɪn /

noun

1. another name for sleight of hand

2. cunning deception or trickery

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Other Word Forms

• legerdemainist noun

Etymology

Origin of legerdemain

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English legerdemeyn, lygarde de mayne “skill in conjuring, sleight of hand,” from Middle French léger de main “nimble, skillful,” literally “light of hand” (unrecorded)

Example Sentences

And he never knew that, unlike the verdict of an early viewer who dismissed his paintings as “mere legerdemain,” today they are seen as magical in a positive sense.

From The Wall Street Journal

Floating playing cards and inducing the disappearance of several billiard balls, Ms. Dea “completely mystified the audience with her legerdemain,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal said in a review.

From Washington Post

That focus leaves Picasso in slight shadow, gives Braque his fair due and crowns a new champion of media monkey business and painterly legerdemain.

From New York Times

The hay — not to mention the marauding birds, “The Wizard of Oz” and the narrative legerdemain — could easily have made “You Will Get Sick” too self-consciously poetic, its spray of images dissipating too quickly.

From New York Times

That does not mean the game wasn’t bereft of Brady’s fourth-quarter legerdemain.

From Los Angeles Times