cantrip

To fellow brokers downstairs on the floor of the Stock Exchange he had merely whispered the compelling cantrip of the bulls: "I've got a good thing!"

From Time Magazine Archive

Thence mystic knots mak great abuse On young guidmen, fond, keen an' crouse, When the best wark-lume i' the house, By cantrip wit, Is instant made no worth a louse, Just at the bit.

From Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

With anxious countenance and attentive ears, they listened to the cantrip effusions of these pretended oracles, which prognosticated the bright or gloomy days of futurity.

From Thaumaturgia by An Oxonian

Methought I had recover'd of the Becket, That all was planed and bevell'd smooth again, Save from some hateful cantrip of thine own.

From Becket and other plays by Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson

And that old witch, Eliza— I little guessed she’d play this cantrip on me: But what a jest—Jerusalem, what a jest!

From Krindlesyke by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson