legerdemain

Etymology

Borrowed from French léger de main (literally “light (weight) of hand”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌlɛdʒ.ə.dɨˈmeɪn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛdʒ.əɹ.dəˌmeɪn/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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  Rhymes: -eɪn

• Hyphenation: leg‧er‧de‧main

Noun

legerdemain (usually uncountable, plural legerdemains)

1. Sleight of hand; "magic" trickery.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.9:

     For he in slights and jugling feates did flow, / And of legierdemayne the mysteries did know.

2. A show of skill or deceitful ability.
   • 1673, Gilbert Burnet, The mystery of iniquity unvailed, London, p. 128:

     Certainly, that they are to this day so rife in Italy and Spain, and so scant in Britain, is a shrewd ground to apprehend Legerdemain, and forgery, in the accounts we get of their later Saints.

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