hocus

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

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

For myself, I love not such hocus pocus; but if it be a matter of Cuthbert's safety, I will e'en go and listen to her tale.

From The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot by Evelyn Everett-Green

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 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

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

I'm the man as hocussed you that there arternoon, down Westminster way.

From M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." by G.J. Whyte-Melville

Then we’ve all been hocussed, and Jarette’s got the upper hand again?”

From Sail Ho! A Boy at Sea by George Manville Fenn

I hocussed the butler and waited with the patients.

From The Wonder by J. D. (John Davys) Beresford

"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

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

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