Word.ws English Dictionary

magic

Syllables: mag·icUK/ˈmad͡ʒɪk//ˈmæd͡ʒɪk/

magic noun: the application of rituals or actions, especially those based on occult knowledge, to subdue or manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces in order to have some benefit from them.

Noun (1)

magic (usually uncountable, plural magics)

  1. (usually) The application of rituals or actions, especially those based on occult knowledge, to subdue or manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces in order to have some benefit from them.
    • “My magic will help you find true love,” said the witch as she looked for the right herbs in her collection.
    • And whan he shall be arrayed as I telle you / lete hym thenne doo his incantacyons & his magyke as he wyll […].c. 1489, Foure Sonnes of Aymon, William Caxton
    1. (usually) The supernatural forces which are drawn on in such a ritual.
    2. (countable, rare, usually) A specific ritual or procedure associated with such magic; a spell; a magical ability.
      • And she can turn people into stone and do all kinds of horrible things. And she has made a magic so that it is always winter in Narnia—always winter, but it never gets to Christmas.1950, C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
      • "I am the master of mighty magics."2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 116
    3. (countable, usually) The ability to cast a magic spell.
      • I learned a new magic after rescuing the tree fairy.
  2. (usually) Something producing successful and remarkable results, especially when not fully understood; an enchanting quality; exceptional skill.
    • The original family who had begun to build a palace to outrival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great...1963, Margery Allingham, “The Elopers”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 25
    • I look at him and there is a magic. What is it? Love?1965 February 10, Lou Sullivan, Diary
    1. (slang, usually) Complicated or esoteric code that is not expected to be generally understood.
      • The stringstream class hides a lot of string parsing magic from us at this point.2017, Jacek Galowicz, C++17 STL Cookbook, page 257
  3. (usually) The art or practice of performing conjuring tricks and illusions to give the appearance of supernatural phenomena or powers.
    1. (countable, usually) One such conjuring trick or illusion.

Adjective

magic (not comparable)

  1. Having supernatural talents, properties or qualities attributed to magic.
    • a magic wand
    • a magic dragon
    Synonyms:
    magical
  2. Producing extraordinary results, as though through the use of magic.
    • a magic moment
    Synonyms:
    wonderful, amazing
  3. Pertaining to conjuring tricks or illusions performed for entertainment etc.
    • a magic show
    • a magic trick
    Synonyms:
    magical
  4. (colloquial) Great; excellent.
    • I cleaned up the flat while you were out. —Really? Magic!
  5. Describing the number of nucleons in a particularly stable isotopic nucleus; 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, 126, and 184.
  6. Being a literal number or string value with no meaning or context, not defined as a constant or variable
    • The code is full of magic numbers and we can't figure out what they mean.

Verb

magic (third-person singular simple present magics, present participle magicking, simple past and past participle magicked)

  1. (transitive) To produce, transform (something), (as if) by magic.
    • He pictured them standing about the dim hallway, magicked into immobility, glazed and mute, one with a hand raised, another bending to set down a bag, and Licht before them, nodding and twitching like a marionette, as usual.1993, John Banville, Ghosts
    • The Western professionals magic so much money offshore that it is impossible to put a reliable figure on it.2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 8, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 132
    Synonyms:
    conjure up, magic up

Noun (2) capitalized: MAGIC

MAGIC (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of magnetism-based interaction capture.
    • Use of MAGIC in genome-wide expression screening can identify multiple protein targets of a drug.2010, Carlos A. Guzmán, Giora Z. Feuerstein, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, page 39

Proper noun capitalized: Magic

Magic

  1. An Allied cryptanalysis project, during and prior to World War II, that decrypted Japanese messages.

magic meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

magic in Hindi

use of rituals or actions exploiting the supernatural
जादू jādū, सेहर sehar

magic in Marathi

use of rituals or actions exploiting the supernatural
जादू jādū
illusion performed to give the appearance of magic or the supernatural
जादू jādū

magic in Urdu

use of rituals or actions exploiting the supernatural
جادُو jādū, سِحْر sihr

magic in Bengali

use of rituals or actions exploiting the supernatural
জাদু jadu, ভেলকি bheloki
More languagesFewer languages
magic in Telugu
మాయ māya
magic in Malayalam
മന്ത്രവാദം mantravādaṁ, മാന്ത്രികം māntrikaṁ, ജാലവിദ്യ jālavidya, മായാജാലം māyājālaṁ
magic in Assamese
যাদু zadu, ভেলেকী bheleki
magic in Pashto
جادو jādu, سحر sehr
magic in Tagalog
mahika, salamangka, hikmat
magic in Arabic
سِحْر siḥr, سِحْرِيّ siḥriyy
magic in Malay
sihir, sakti
magic in Indonesian
sihir, magi, keajaiban, sulap
magic in Thai
เวทมนตร์ wêet-mon, มายากล maa-yaa-gon
magic in Vietnamese
ma thuật, yêu thuật, phép thuật, pháp thuật
magic in Myanmar
မျက်လှည့် myakhlany., ပဉ္စလက် panyca.lak

Examples of magic in a sentence

  • The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited.1781, Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, II.23:
  • Does not the very name stir the heart [...] with a thrill more mysterious and romantic than any allusion to the magics of Egypt or Hind?1928, Lewis Spence, Mysteries of Britain, page viii. 192:
  • Conversions to the new religion […] have frequently been assisted by the view of converts that they are acquiring not just a means of otherworldly salvation, but a new and more powerful magic.1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 23:
  • Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.1973, Arthur C. Clark, Profiles of the future, revised edition:

All 40 example sentences with magic

Synonyms of magic

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of magic

Forms of magic

Noun
pluralmagics
alternative formmagick
alternative form (obsolete)magicke
alternative form (obsolete)magique
Verb
third-person singular presentmagics
present participlemagicking
past participlemagicked
pastmagicked

Plural of magic: magics

Origin of magic

From Middle English magik, magyk, from Old French magique (noun and adjective), from Latin magicus (adjective), magica (noun use of feminine form of magicus), from Ancient Greek μαγικός (magikós, “magical”), from μάγος (mágos, “magus”). Ultimately from Old Iranian, probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂gʰ- (“to be able to, to help; power, sorcerer”). Displaced Old English ġealdor (whence Middle English galder) and dwimmer.

Words formed from magic

Phrases with magic

93 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with magic

Questions about magic

What does magic mean?
Magic means the application of rituals or actions, especially those based on occult knowledge, to subdue or manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces in order to have some benefit from them.
What is magic in Hindi?
Magic in Hindi is जादू (jādū), सेहर (sehar). See Magic meaning in Hindi.
How do you use magic in a sentence?
The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited.
What part of speech is magic?
Magic can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce magic?
Magic is pronounced /ˈmad͡ʒɪk/ (UK).
What is the plural of magic?
The plural of magic is magics.

Words near magic in the dictionary

  1. maghzens
  2. magi
  3. Magian
  4. Magianism
  5. Magians
  6. magic
  7. Magic 8 Ball
  8. Magic 8 Balls
  9. magic acid
  10. magic acids
  11. magic asterisk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: magic (page history and authors); MAGIC (page history and authors); Magic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-magic.ogg.

Cite this entry: “magic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/magic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.