legerdemain

noun

Etymology: From Middle English legerdemeyn, lechardemane, from Old French léger de main (literally “light of hand”), a phrase that meant “dexterous, skillful at fooling others (especially through sleights of hand)”, which was however treated as a noun when it was borrowed by late Middle English. The Modern French descendant léger de main of the Old French phrase is archaic but still sometimes found in older literature and simply means “skillful” without any connotation of sleight of hand.

1. Sleight of hand; "magic" trickery.

   “For he in slights and jugling feates did flow, / And of legierdemayne the mysteries did know.”

   “[…] A deliberate man with infinite resources of patience, he was content to progress by easy stages toward the millennium. Some private legerdemain must have reconciled him to the "practical" methods that were employed. […]”

2. A show of skill or deceitful ability.

   “Certainly, that they are to this day so rife in Italy and Spain, and so scant in Britain, is a shrewd ground to apprehend Legerdemain, and forgery, in the accounts we get of their later Saints.”

   “Just for a moment, absurdly over-estimating poor Zuleika’s skill, he supposed himself a victim of legerdemain.”