First recorded in 1885–90
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One was with a mind reader — though he’d reject the term — who insisted that the trick wasn’t magic at all, but attention.
From Salon ● Feb. 18, 2026
The 28-year-old mind reader, who graduated from the Junior Society in 2020, described the program as his “professional playground,” which gave him the skills he needed to pursue magic full-time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2025
Don't expect them to be a mind reader.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2024
Nightmare Alley stars Bradley Cooper as Stanton Carlisle, a nightclub mind reader who becomes tangled up with Cate Blanchett as Dr. Lilith Ritter, a psychiatrist out to debunk him as a fraud.
From The Verge ● Sep. 16, 2021
And, like a mind reader, Mikayla’s mom had gone into their cabinets and pulled out a seed, just for me.
From "The Science of Breakable Things" by Tae Keller
CNN’s Jake Tapper, in debriefing reporter Evan Perez, said he couldn’t ask him to be a mind-reader in assessing Trump’s mood.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 13, 2023
I wasn’t trying to see if it could guess what actually came next — it’s not a mind-reader.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 26, 2021
I know that no one is a mind-reader, but I didn’t think I was coercing my partner, and I feel very uneasy trying to retroactively “read” their body language for clues.
From Slate ● Mar. 18, 2021
“Some are legitimate and some are corrupt, and you don’t need to be a mind-reader to figure out which is which,” he said.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 29, 2020
“Oh,” she said, and then went into grandparent mind-reader mode.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
