hocus-pocus (2009-09-19)

Part of Speech: noun

Pronunciation: ['ho-kês 'po-kês]

Definition: A trick performed by a magician (sometimes accompanied by the recitation of this word); machinations or tricks designed to disguise chicanery or deception.

Usage: Basically, "hocus-pocus" refers to magic tricks, "After he completed magic school, Biff was a master of hocus-pocus." However, since magic tricks are a kind of deception, today's word is more frequently used in referring to the use of deception in achieving one's aims, "What sort of hocus-pocus did you use, Geraldine, to get Llewellyn to take you out?"

Suggested Usage: Originally, these were two words used as a pseudo-incantation during the performance of magic tricks. Now, however, it is one word with a meaning of its own. Some have used it as a verb ("to hocus-pocus in politics") and others, as an adverb ("to hocus-pocusly convert"). You may use today's word these ways at your own risk.

Etymology: In his treatise on witchcraft, 'A Candle in the Dark' (1655), Thomas Ady wrote: "I will speak of one man…that went about in King James his time…who called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery." Where Hocus Pocus got the words he used with his magic tricks is uncertain. Archbishop John Tillotson claimed in a sermon delivered in 1742, "In all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation." (I use no hocus-pocus in conveying to Julie Langford-Johnson of the University of Indiana our sincerest gratitude for contributing today's word.)