prestidigitator
Americannoun
plural
prestidigitatorsExplanation
If you hire a professional prestidigitator for your little brother's birthday party, you'll get a performer who uses tricks and sleight-of-hand to entertain the crowd. The noun prestidigitator is just a fancy way of saying "magician." You might see a prestidigitator at a party or on a street corner, pulling quarters out of people's ears and turning rabbits into bouquets of flowers. The noun prestidigitation is another name for the quick hand movements and secret techniques of an illusionist. Both words come from the Latin word for "juggler," præstigiator.
Vocabulary lists containing prestidigitator
The Jungle
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Words with 15 or More Letters, List 5
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Magical Vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Perfect for the kitchen magician or dinner-party prestidigitator on your holiday gift list.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 3, 2024
Italo Calvino: I’d need a master metaphysician, storyteller and prestidigitator to make something glittering out of my mostly repetitive and rather beige existence.
From New York Times • Nov. 19, 2020
After Seve Ballesteros chipped in at the second hole, Enberg said, ‘Ballesteros, the prestidigitator from Pedrena.’
From Golf Digest • Dec. 22, 2017
In Merchants of Doubt, close-up prestidigitator extraordinaire Jamy Ian Swiss offers an answer: “Once revealed, never concealed.”
From Scientific American • Mar. 10, 2015
It is a wonderful bit of psychology—this giving with an obligation—and Andrew Carnegie is not only the Prince of Ironmasters, but he is a pedagogic prestidigitator, and an artistic financial hypnotist.
From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 11 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen by Hubbard, Elbert
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.
