Word.ws English Dictionary

sleight-of-hand

sleight-of-hand is the alternative form of sleight of hand.

Meaning of sleight of hand

Noun

sleight of hand (countable and uncountable, plural sleights of hand)

  1. The required manual dexterity used to perform magic tricks and illusions.
    • A large portion of natural magic and sleight of hand is only the severance of sights and feels that we are accustomed to experience in unison.1856, Alexander Bryan Johnson, The Physiology of the Senses, page 65
  2. A performance of such a skill.
  3. (broadly, figuratively) Any form of clever or skillful trickery or deception.
    • "Gave his consent! For his son to marry an actress?"
      "Ah, there was a little sleight of hand there. He only knew Miss Roscastle as Miss Eileen O'Rourke, the last representative of a line of Irish kings. […]"1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC

Forms of sleight-of-hand

pluralsleights-of-hand

Questions about sleight-of-hand

What is sleight-of-hand the alternative form of?
Sleight-of-hand is the alternative form of sleight of hand.

Words near sleight-of-hand in the dictionary

  1. sleighload
  2. sleighs
  3. sleighsful
  4. sleight
  5. sleight of hand
  6. sleight-of-hand
  7. sleightful
  8. sleightly
  9. sleights
  10. sleights of hand
  11. sleights-of-hand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleight-of-hand (page history and authors); sleight of hand (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.

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