Magical Vocabulary

He circled his hands over the bike, like a magician about to pull out a rabbit; then he popped open the seat to show us the cargo pocket.

After the illusionist takes her bow and disappears before her rapt audience’s eyes, they clap, applauding the empty air.

His new book, "How Magicians Think: Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters," isn't a how-to for aspiring prestidigitators.
– Salon

They were men of the desert, and they were fearful of sorcerers.

“She was an illusion, and all the tech magic she supposedly performed was actually Dylan here.”

His prestidigitations got progressively grander over the years, culminating in his making the Statue of Liberty “disappear” in 1983.
– The Washington Times

He amazed everyone with his feats of legerdemain.

“Jiggery pokery!” said Harry in a fierce voice. “Hocus pocus — squiggly wiggly—” Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

It is said that no spells are worked there, and yet the place itself is an enchantment.

Pushing Harry roughly aside, he knelt over Malfoy, drew his wand, and traced it over the deep wounds Harry’s curse had made, muttering an incantation that sounded almost like song.

Leo sweeps his hand through the air, like he’s a magician conjuring a world.

The infinity pool, perched at the edge of a hill overlooking Lake Travis, offered the illusory sensation that I might be able to swim over its side.

The legionnaires manning Blackcliff’s gates seem not to see us as we pass out of the school, and I wonder if Cain has used Augur sorcery on them.

The spectators seem impressed by the deceptions, often applauding them politely.

Whether it had been built that way, or because he had used magical trickery to make it so, Slughorn’s office was much larger than the usual teacher’s study.

“Used to book him whenever I could get my hands on him, years ago now. Absolutely brilliant, completely mesmerized every audience. Never seen anyone to match him, never.”

“It’s a new trick I’m working up. All about levitation. My parents bought me a chair suspension kit. You want to come see it?”

None of us has, and few of us would want, a power of clairvoyance that would expose to us everyone else’s private thoughts.

Mrs. Cobb strode on in front of him, passing a stairway that rose up too steeply, and then a library hoarding shelves of dark volumes—the arts of necromancy, Turner figured.

Age and experience had sharpened Clara’s ability to divine the occult and to move objects from afar.