sleight of hand

noun

1. skill in feats requiring quick and clever movements of the hands, especially for entertainment or deception, as jugglery, card or coin magic, etc.; legerdemain.
2. the performance of such feats.
3. a feat of legerdemain.
4. skill in deception.

sleight of hand

noun

1. manual dexterity used in performing conjuring tricks
2. the performance of such tricks

Word History and Origins

Origin of sleight of hand¹

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400

Idioms and Phrases

Trickery, deviousness, as in By some sleight of hand they managed to overlook all bonuses . This term alludes to the performance of magic tricks with the hands. Its figurative use dates from about 1700.

Example Sentences

Like any good suspense novelist, Shields is a master of evasion and sleight-of-hand.

From The Daily Beast

Catching Fire perpetuates an ideological vision that, today, is a sleight-of-hand.

From The Daily Beast

This option creates bad optics as well, because it looks like the old pork-barrel log rolling and legislative sleight-of-hand.

From The Daily Beast

In the smoke and mirrors of the fashion world, Wang is an expert at sleight-of-hand.

From The Daily Beast

The old sleight-of-hand expert had stolen it, sure, and slipped it under his robe.

From Project Gutenberg

Just think: after five years of desertion, and trouble without end, and it all put right by a little sleight-of-hand.

From Project Gutenberg

He shot out his hand and produced his watch with the celerity of a sleight-of-hand performer.

From Project Gutenberg

Nature fills her baskets by the same sleight-of-hand, and the observer must be on the alert who would possess her secret.

From Project Gutenberg

Need you be surprised then, that a sleight-of-hand man, a manipulator of goblets, requires accomplices?

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• chicanery
• deception
• trickery