Legerdemain – Wacky Word Wednesday

Hi everyone! Welcome to another fresh edition of Wacky Word Wednesday. We hope you’re excited because we are exactly one week away from feasting on delicious Christmas food, reuniting with family, receiving gifts or whatever it is you have planned for the holiday. To add a little bit of magic to your Christmas, we’ve prepared a word that will take us into the realm of illusion.

This week’s word, taken from Termwiki.com, is:

legerdemain [lej-er-duh-meyn] -noun Sleight of hand; any artful deception or trick; skill in using your hands to perform magic tricks.

Legerdemain comes from the French léger de main which means dexterous, or light of hand. It can be used literally to describe a magic trick, or figuratively to describe some other kind of trickery or deceit. When a magician makes something disappear, he is performing an act of legerdemain.

Magic is sometimes referred to as stage magic to distinguish it from paranormal or ritual magic. Some magicians may also be referred to by names reflecting the type of magical effects they present, such as prestidigitators, conjurors, hypnotists, mentalists, or escape artist. Englishman Reginald Scot published the first book of magic tricks titled The Discoverie of Witchcraft in 1584. The book was devoted to debunking the claims of magicians and showing how their legerdemains were accomplished. At the time, fear and belief in witchcraft was widespread and the book tried to demonstrate that these fears were misplaced.

For your reference, we’ve provided two examples using legerdemain:

• The manner in which such properties are snapped up makes one think legerdemain is employed. (Dictionary.com)
• To compensate, Wroblewski seeks to impress the reader with feats of literary legerdemain. (WordHippo)

If you want, you can also learn a few magic tricks and dazzle your friends and family with legerdemain. Hiring a magician is also not a bad idea to spice up your upcoming Christmas parties. We hope you’ve learned something from today’s Wacky Word Wednesday and we’ll see you again next time.

If you’re interested in learning more wacky words, make sure to visit csoftintl.com!