hocus
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Mentalist and theater artist Vinny DePonto, a bearded, soft-spoken man with gentle eyes, doesn’t want to bamboozle us with hocus pocus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2022
“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
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
It knows it’s always being upstaged by the hocus pocus of its own medium.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2016
By some hocus pocus of which Comstockery is easily capable it might have been obscene to speak of the digestive process or of any of the digestive organs.
From Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 by Emma Goldman
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
You was hocussed, Master Tom; and I can point out to you the man as did it.
From M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." by G.J. Whyte-Melville
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
No, out of this glass of mine, if you please, just to show that it isn't hocussed.
From The White Blackbird by Hudson Douglas
He used to be hocussed with water of an evil taste, and wake in a clean shirt.
From Historical Mysteries by Andrew Lang
“Here, you’d better do the throwing, or you’ll be swearing I’ve hocussed the coin,” said Dawes, with a dry smile.
From The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley by Bertram Mitford
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 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
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 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
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
