Legerdemain

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ËŒlÉ›dÊ’É™dɨˈmeɪn/
• US IPA: /ˈlÉ›dʒəɹdəˌmeɪn/Rhymes: -eɪn
• Hyphenation: leg + er + de + main

Origin

Borrowing from fr léger de main.

Noun

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.

Synonyms

• prestidigitation
• sleight of hand