Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who practises prestidigitation; a prestigiator; a juggler.
Wiktionary
- n. One who performs feats of prestidigitation, a sleight-of-hand artist, a magician
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One skilled in legerdemain or sleight of hand; a juggler.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who performs magic tricks to amuse an audience
Etymologies
- From Italian presto ("quick") and Latin digitus ("finger"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“In the ring on the right, we have our gifted prestidigitator, Mr. John Shannon.”
“Well-meaning pedants may wonder why so gifted a verbal prestidigitator as Mr. Ives has resorted so often to imperfect rhymes, each one of which diminishes the hectic glitter of the play's verbal surface by a tiny but measurable increment.”
“Belief is an ephemeral and passive condition, based on submission to the prestidigitator through the suspension of reason, often in the face of obvious evidence of an opposite intention, rather like the empty, impotent vessel of its relative, hope.”
“Please remember that this prestidigitator as US President does NOT represent America, by any means.”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“I strongly suggest they have been leant on by shadowy persons or individuals whose motivations and loyalties will be hard to untangle but which, if the effort is made, will turn out to lead back to the Hartlepool prestidigitator.”
“For all his brilliance as the theater's foremost prestidigitator of language and thought, Stoppard is a conservative who, like Einstein himself, resists the idea that chance is the "" mother '' of reality.”
“From this verbal prestidigitator, we imbibe the lesson that both storyteller and con man make us willing victims.”
“DOWD: In a webcast, prestidigitator Penn Jillette talks about a joke he has begun telling in his show.”
“Beck was also a proficient hypnotist, prestidigitator, chemist and roboticist, wearing a fishbowl, one-way plexiglass helmet, with gas jets mounted in his gloves and boots capable of emitting hallucinogenic, 'web' dissolving gases.”
“Even Jeremiah Wright, an embarrassing pastor who would probably have brought down a less-deft political prestidigitator, will not do in Barack Obama.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘prestidigitator’.
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Ayatollah's list
Trinkets of lexical goodness.
floccinaucinihili..., quomodocunquize, curmudgeon, illaqueate, ipsissimosity, heterochthonous, hakenkreuz, forisfamiliate, appropinquate, apodyopsis, baryphony, cachinnate and 146 more...
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iwbaker's list
basic trial list
septentrional, saucebox, cuspidor, prestidigitator, mudbug, zeitgeist
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Hitch Words
Words from the lexicon of Christopher Hitchens
propinquity, fratricide, factitious, vitiate, sectarianism, ostensible, atavistic, sephardic, doyen, palpable, encephalitic, fastidious and 188 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Collage's Words
subtle, calamity, impale, qat, painterly, piebald, surly, nihilistic, repine, slake, larder, sepulchre and 349 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
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Contact!
Words for the guessing game of Contact, which is remarkably effective at killing time when you're with 2 or more people. The game is similar to Botticelli.
totemic, fungible, solipsism, copacetic, adamantine, pessary, vivisect, postlapsarian, doggerel, waif, stentorian, zoetrope and 67 more...
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verba
defenestrate, palimpsest, legerdemain, inculcate, prestidigitator, shanghai, usufruct, chiaroscuro, apophenia, crepuscular, eschatology, braggadocio and 7 more...
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invented by bored Victorians
currently up to 1864 - progress will continue!
Bonus prize: the split infinitiveabsquatulate, phalanstery, ampersand, arboretum, stridulation, penology, antidisestablishm..., calisthenics, bric-a-brac, pyromania, dipsomania, prestidigitator and 7 more...
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herotuesday's Words
butyraceous, thrasonical, turgid, ululate, irenic, punctilio, discombobulate, ecdysiast, formicate, favonian, agnate, erubescence and 614 more...
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Into the Mystic
mage, pentacle, ignis fatuus, grim, deism, wivern, bacchanal, vela, prestidigitator, heterodox, soothsaying, lamia and 5 more...
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Words I Can't Pronounce
cinnamon, chrysanthemum, prestidigitator, cachinnate, congener, epigone
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amusing or significant
Tweets
Looking for tweets for prestidigitator.

bilby Belongs in the pugilist category. Dec 9, 2008
galeforcewind has been a favorite of mine since childhood - one of those words you have on hand to impress adults Dec 8, 2008