hocus

American  

[hoh-kuhs] / ˈhoʊ kəs /

verb (used with object)

hocused, hocusing, hocussed, hocussing

1. to play a trick on; hoax; cheat.

2. to stupefy with drugged liquor.

3. to drug (liquor).

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hocus British  

/ ˈhəʊkəs /

verb

1. to take in; trick

2. to stupefy, esp with a drug

3. to add a drug to (a drink)

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Etymology

Origin of hocus

First recorded in 1665–75; short for hocus-pocus

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hocus hocused hocussed hocussing

“What he did for those 20 hours is hocus pocus,” Richards said in urging jurors to reject consideration of the image.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 15, 2021

“Dew manipulated the slides. The one clue we couldn’t figure out was the placard, but they played hocus pocus with the placard. We were given something that had been altered.”

From The Guardian ● Sep. 30, 2017

It knows it’s always being upstaged by the hocus pocus of its own medium.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2016

Or you could say it was an unintended pulling back of the curtain on all the hocus pocus that goes into healthcare costs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2016

Nobody ever despised more than Carlyle the perennial fallacy that things can be done better by the hocus pocus of procedure than by the intelligent application of the available means to the end desired.

From The Unpopular Review, Number 19 July-December 1918 by Various

Realizing this almost gave my mind stage fright, but I was too fagged to be hocused by self-consciousness.

From The Big Time by Leiber, Fritz

He is Moore hocused for the American market.

From The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2 by Various

It must have been working as sweet and steady as ever, all the time it was Inverted, except that, being inside out, it had hocused the direction finders.

From The Big Time by Leiber, Fritz

Ill-lodged, ill-fed, ill-used, hocussed, entrapped, anticipated, cleaned out. 

From The Uncommercial Traveller by Dickens, Charles

"But you see we are not quite such fools as we look; and we have heard of such a thing, in our time, as hocussed wine."

From A Rogue's Life by Collins, Wilkie

But if he allows hisself to be hocussed in that way, I don't know but what I shall be ashamed.

From Orley Farm by Trollope, Anthony

Then we’ve all been hocussed, and Jarette’s got the upper hand again?”

From Sail Ho! A Boy at Sea by Fenn, George Manville

"I feel as queer as if I had been hocussed."

From Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)

"The operation—combining equal parts of hocussing, overcharging, and direct robbery—and facetiously christened by bush landlords `lambing down.'"

From Austral English A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia by Morris, Edward Ellis

The Doctor espoused the moral hocussing system, and Feargus took up the bludgeon for physical force.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 13, 1841 by Various

Then he became absorbed in steering, and sternly rejected all further consideration of his gift; he would have neither hand nor part in hocussing French agriculturalists posing as mariners.

From The Admirable Tinker Child of the World by Jepson, Edgar

There is no chance of hocussing a horse, or laming him, or bribing a stable boy, or squaring a jockey.

From Hard Pressed by White, Fred M. (Fred Merrick)

The fortune-tellers have been consulted about them; dreamers have dreamed the winners; and many an underhand attempt, sometimes including the hocussing of men or horses, has been made to corrupt the sport.

From Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul by Tucker, T. G. (Thomas George)