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Glite Dictionary
🎩 A trick 🎩 To trick 🪄 Magic word
to hocus

to hocus

1 8.2
To trick someone, often in a playful way like a magic trick
  • verb
  • /ˈhoʊkəs/
  • Informal
translation icon : engañar
  • During the show, the performer exclaimed hocus as he pulled a coin from behind a child's ear.

I get my shit hocused like a motherfucking magician and I'll be lying like a damn politician.

Examples

  • 'Cause I hocus-pocus, keep your focus # #Then you know this, that's what's up # # You gonna breathe now # #

    Meet the Spartans (2008)

  • Then I could just hocus pocus all this junk out here.

  • The magician waved his wand and said hocus to make the rabbit disappear.

  • She tried to hocus her friends into believing that she had won the lottery.

Synonyms

to play tricks
vsto hocus
15 3.0

To make someone believe something that is not true as a joke

is more magical or theatrical rather than purely mischievous
to play a trick on
vsto hocus
6 2.8

To fool someone as a joke

is more like a charming illusion or magical deception
to flim-flam
vsto hocus
  • Archaic
1 9.5

To trick someone by using clever talk

is more playful and magical rather than deliberately fraudulent
to hornswoggle
vsto hocus
  • Archaic
1 9.9

To trick someone to take their money or things

emphasizes playful or magical misdirection rather than hard fraud
to cod
vsto hocus
  • UK
8.8

To trick someone as a joke

is more playful and sometimes uses stage or magic effects
to flimflam
vsto hocus
  • Archaic
9.6

To trick someone by lying or cheating

is lighter and more playful, not mainly dishonest
to chouse
vsto hocus
9.9

To trick someone and take their money or things

is not primarily about cheating for profit but playful deceit

Antonyms

to reveal
∞ 2.3

Show something that was hidden or secret

Compounds

hocus-pocus
9 8.1

Words or actions that trick people by seeming magical

How Deceptive

to defraud
  • Formal
40 6.9
to dupe
58 6.4
to trick
326 3.5
to hocus
  • Informal
1 8.2
to prank
  • Informal
16 2.9

Surface Forms

hocus infinitive
hocused past
hocused past participle
hocussing present participle
hocuses third person singular

Etymology

Hocus comes from the show phrase hocus pocus, possibly copied from the Latin phrase hoc est corpus 'this is the body' because it sounded like a magical saying. So to hocus someone is to trick or fool them, much like a stage magician does.