hocus-pocus

n

1. mumbo jumbo, abracadabra, open sesame, magic word, magic formula; incantation, chant, invocation, conjuration, conjuring, evocation.

2. juggler's trick, jugglery, sleight of hand, legerdemain, prestidigitation, Brit. hanky-panky; feint, deception of the eye, trompe 1'oeil, Inf. dodge, fetch; magic, conjuring, conjuration.

3. trickery, hokey-pokey, chicane, chicanery; deception, deceit, artifice, shrewdness, hanky-panky; stratagem, wile, finesse, ruse, shift, maneuver, circumvention; trap, scheme, intrigue, plan, contrivance, corn-plot, conspiracy; trick, hoax, humbug, sham, delusion, pretense; prank, jape, spoof; cunning, slyness, craft, craftiness, guile; cheat, cozenage, Inf. gyp; swindle, Archaic. chouse, fraud, imposture; cardsharping, double-dealing, duplicity, Obs. cog, confidence game, con game, the old army game.

4. obfuscation, elaboration, magnifying, amplification; padding, redundancy, superfluous words, overstatement, repetition; wordiness, verbosity, prolixity, prolixness, verbiage, verbalism; diffuseness, profuseness, effusion, effusiveness; jargon, cant, nonsense, gobbledegook.

v

5. trick, practice trickery or deception upon, deceive, hoodwink, jockey; dupe, gull, take in, cozen, befool, Archaic. chouse; humbug, Inf. flimflam, Inf. practice upon; cheat, bilk, swindle, defraud, palm off, job, victimize, diddle; hoax, betray, Inf. sell out, play false; mislead, bluff, beguile, delude, impose upon, mystify, bamboozle, pull the wool over one's eyes; fake, counterfeit, dissemble, dissimulate, sham, pretend, Brit. Inf. gammon; bait, lure, entice, inveigle, ensnare, snare, entangle, entrap, trap; circumvent, outwit, outmaneuver, overreach, evade