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

I don’t speak in delphic tongues or offer holy absolution or perform shamanic hocus pocus; I really don’t do much of anything but sit there, listen and try to tell the truth.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2018

“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

"Av we war to hocus it that, yer riverence," said Mrs. Daly, turning to Mr. Townsend, "the crathurs couldn't ate a bit of it; it wouldn't bile at all, at all, not like that."

From Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope

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

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

He is Moore hocused for the American market.

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

He used to be hocussed with water of an evil taste, and wake in a clean shirt.

From Historical Mysteries by Andrew Lang

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

These pieces would deceive any amateur and quite a few experts: they fairly hocussed me till I turned on the glasses.

From A Drake by George! by John Trevena

He was hocussed with a dose o’ powder, so as he shouldn’t be able to ride La Sylphidey, and them’s the two as done it.

From Sir Hilton's Sin by George Manville Fenn

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

From Aladdin of London or, Lodestar by Sir Max Pemberton

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

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

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 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

"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