Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Deftness; dexterity.
- noun A clever or skillful trick or deception; an artifice or stratagem.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Deceitful; artful.
- noun Cunning; craft; subtlety.
- noun Skill; dexterity; cleverness.
- noun Art; contrivance; trick; stratagem; artful feat.
- noun A feat or trick so skilfully or dexterously performed as to deceive the beholder; a feat of magic; a trick of legerdemain.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete Cunning; craft; artful practice.
- noun An artful trick; sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation.
- noun Dexterous practice; dexterity; skill.
- noun legerdemain; prestidigitation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Cunning ; craft; artful practice. - noun An artful trick;
sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation. - noun Dexterous practice; dexterity; skill.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun adroitness in using the hands
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It is a food label sleight-of-hand that Bruce Silverglade of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit advocacy group, calls a "rip-off" for consumers.
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It is a food label sleight-of-hand that Bruce Silverglade of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit advocacy group, calls a "rip-off" for consumers.
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(Spoken) -- Hallo, (said the clown, scrambling up again, and scratching his broken head,) to be sure I have heard of sleight-of-hand, hocus-pocus and sich like; but by gum this here be a new manouvre called sleight of legs; however as no boanes be broken between us, I'll endeavour to make use on 'em once more in following the game in view: so here goes, with a
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But the same kind of sleight-of-hand is occurring here as with the climate debate.
Run and hit Tom Toles 2010
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Another time, they play at the edge of the stage and execute a kind of sleight of body, marching off stage, quickly changing clothes before marching back on in another guise, repeating this several times in a matter of seconds or minutes.
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You could populate an interesting subcategory of composers with a particular flair for that kind of sleight-of-hand.
Categorical denials Matthew Guerrieri 2008
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You could populate an interesting subcategory of composers with a particular flair for that kind of sleight-of-hand.
Archive 2008-07-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2008
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The original referred to a "sleight" against Jamie Carragher.
Jamie Carragher: 'I'm not on my last legs at Liverpool yet' 2010
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If these wars can only be funded through this kind of sleight of hand, they maybe shouldn't be funded at all.
Rep. Alan Grayson: Funding the War: There Ought to Be a Rule Against This Kind of Rule 2010
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Nothing to do with the kind of sleight-of-hand obfuscation you're trying to pull here, equating "all other Democrats" with Lieberman.
CT-SEN: Lieberman Won't Say Whether Dems Should Win House 2009
iamerica commented on the word sleight
of hand, yo!
February 3, 2008
wackyvorlon commented on the word sleight
Often used by magicians to refer to a particular move done during a magic trick.
September 23, 2008