sleight

• I haven't been to a sleight-of-hand performance since I was a little girl, and I always had a liking for that sort of thing Oh, do! —  The Governess
• Nan was gesticulating in her own graphic fashion, and the girls could easily follow her by watching her expression and her vivid pantomime Plainly she was describing the sleight-of-hand performance to her bashful friend, and Miss Blake could readily see that she was not sparing herself in the recital She raised her hands to her head and pretended to take off her hat, which she made a show of reluctantly surrendering to some one who received it with a profound bow. —  The Governess
• Precipitation of rice was produced, in modes known to sleight-of-hand only. —  Aladdin ; Co. A Romance of Yankee Magic
• Next forenoon, however, a sleight-of-hand character having arrived, together with a bass drum and a bugle horn, that was likely to take the shine out of them, and maybe also purchase my article--which was capital for his purpose, having famous wide sleeves--they came back in less than no time, asking the liberty, before finally concluding with me, of carrying them home to their lodgings for ten minutes to see how they would fit; and, in that case, offering me thirty-five shillings and an old flute. —  The Life of Mansie Wauch tailor in Dalkeith
• The wrestling figures, heedless of the abyss, swayed hither and thither, the precious box among them; now it was captured by a stronger grasp, now secured anew by sheer sleight-of-hand. —  A Chilhowee Lily 1911

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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