subs. (old: now recognised).—1.  A juggler’s phrase. Hence a juggler’s (or impostor’s) stock in trade. Also HOCUS-TRADE.

1

  1639–61.  Rump Songs, ‘Vanity of Vanities.’ A HOCUS-POCUS, juggling Knight. Ibid., ii., 156. ‘The Rump Ululant.’ Religion we made free of HOCUS TRADE.

2

  1646.  RANDOLPH, The Jealous Lovers, i., 10. Pæg. If I do not think women were got with riddling, whip me! HOCUS-POCUS, here you shall have me, and there you shall have me!

3

  1654.  GAYTON, Festivious Notes on … Don Quixote, 46. This old fellow had not the HOCAS POCAS of Astrology.

4

  1656.  T. ADY, A Candle in the Dark, p. 29. At the playing of every trick he used to say,

        HOCUS POCUS, tontus talontus
Vade celeriter jubeo;
a dark composure of words to blind the eyes of the beholders.

5

  1675.  WYCHERLEY, The Country Wife, iii., 2. That burlesque is a HOCUS-POCUS trick they have got.

6

  d. 1680.  BUTLER, Remains (1759), ii., 122. With a little heaving and straining, would turn it into Latin, as Mille HOCOPOKIANA, and a thousand such.

7

  1689.  MARVELL, A Historical Poem, line 90.

        With HOCUS-POCUS, and their heavenly fight,
They gain on tender consciences at night.

8

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

9

  1824–28.  LANDOR, Imaginary Conversations [2nd ed., ii., 275]. Torke. What think you, for instance, of HOCUS! POCUS! Johnson. Sir, those are exclamations of conjurors, as they call themselves.

10

  1883.  Daily Telegraph, 26 March, p. 5, c. 3 The lock of hair, the dragon’s blood, and the stolen flour were only the HOCUS-POCUS of her sham witchcraft like the transfixed waxen puppets of the sorcerers of the past.

11

  2.  (old).—A trickster; a juggler; an impostor.

12

  1625.  JONSON, The Staple of News, ii. Mirth. That was the old way, gossip, when Iniquity came in [on the stage] like HOKOS POKOS, in a jugler’s jerkin, with false skirts, like the knave of clubs.

13

  1634.  HOCUS POCUS JUNIOR, The Anatomie of Leger de main [Title].

14

  1656.  BLOUNT, Glossographia, s.v. HOCUS POCUS, a juggler, one that shows tricks by sleight of hand.

15

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. HOCUS-POCUS, a Juggler that shews Tricks by Slight of Hand.

16

  1725.  A New Canting Dictionary, s.v.

17

  3.  (old).—A cheat; an imposition; a juggler’s trick.

18

  1713.  BENTLEY, On Free Thinking, 12. Our author is playing HOCUS-POCUS in the very similitude he takes from that juggler.

19

  4.  (old).—See HOCUS, sense 2.

20

  Adj. (old).—Cheating; fraudulent.

21

  1715.  ADDISON, The Drummer, v., 1. Fant. Why, if thou hast any HOCUS POCUS tricks to play, why canst not do them here?

22

  1725–29.  W. MASON, Horace, Imitated iv., 8.

        Such HOCUS-POCUS tricks, I own,
Belong to Gallic bards alone.

23

  1759.  MACKLIN, Love à la Mode, ii., 1. The law is a sort of HOCUS-POCUS science that smiles in yer face while it picks your pocket.

24

  Verb (old).—To cheat; to trick.

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