hocus

“What he did for those 20 hours is hocus pocus,” Richards said in urging jurors to reject consideration of the image.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 15, 2021

Imam Hasan, who is based at the Al-Emaan Centre in Bromley, Kent, said ruqya is misunderstood and rejected myths of "spells, magic wands or hocus pocus" being involved.

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2021

“We’ve always been interested in how music impacts the mentally ill, but some scientists shun the idea of researching this because it’s been viewed as hocus pocus,” he said.

From Washington Times ● Oct. 6, 2018

“Dew manipulated the slides. The one clue we couldn’t figure out was the placard, but they played hocus pocus with the placard. We were given something that had been altered.”

From The Guardian ● Sep. 30, 2017

And that young John would ride clean to town just to say 'How' to that ole hocus.

From Jim Waring of Sonora-Town Tang of Life by Henry Herbert Knibbs

Realizing this almost gave my mind stage fright, but I was too fagged to be hocused by self-consciousness.

From The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

It must have been working as sweet and steady as ever, all the time it was Inverted, except that, being inside out, it had hocused the direction finders.

From The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

He is Moore hocused for the American market.

From The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2 by Various

"But you see we are not quite such fools as we look; and we have heard of such a thing, in our time, as hocussed wine."

From A Rogue's Life by Wilkie Collins

She went down at the distance like a filly that's been hocussed.

From Aladdin of London or, Lodestar by Sir Max Pemberton

"I feel as queer as if I had been hocussed."

From Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

You have hocussed an innocent widow; and I find you here in my apartment, for whose use I pay you in stamped money, searching my wardrobe, and your hand—shame, sir!—your hand in my very pocket.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

I had a healthy appetite, but the tradition was that all the food was unutterably bad, adulterated, hocussed.

From Escape, and Other Essays by Arthur Christopher Benson

There is no chance of hocussing a horse, or laming him, or bribing a stable boy, or squaring a jockey.

From Hard Pressed by Fred M. (Fred Merrick) White

"The operation—combining equal parts of hocussing, overcharging, and direct robbery—and facetiously christened by bush landlords `lambing down.'"

From Austral English A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia by Edward Ellis Morris

Then he became absorbed in steering, and sternly rejected all further consideration of his gift; he would have neither hand nor part in hocussing French agriculturalists posing as mariners.

From The Admirable Tinker Child of the World by Edgar Jepson

The Doctor espoused the moral hocussing system, and Feargus took up the bludgeon for physical force.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 13, 1841 by Various

The fortune-tellers have been consulted about them; dreamers have dreamed the winners; and many an underhand attempt, sometimes including the hocussing of men or horses, has been made to corrupt the sport.

From Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul by T. G. (Thomas George) Tucker