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
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 you don’t need to be a mind reader to figure out which is which. For one thing, you can ask John Bolton.”
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 29, 2020
He must be a mind reader, Buttercup thought.
From "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
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 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
As the introduction to “This Is Our Song” puts it, she is “a storyteller, a mind-reader, a believer, and a friend.”
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 18, 2016
His perceptions are sharp and delicate and he is a mind-reader.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
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.
