[
UK
/lˈɛdʒədɪmˌeɪn/
]
[ US /ˌɫɛdʒɝdəˈmeɪn/ ]
[ US /ˌɫɛdʒɝdəˈmeɪn/ ]
NOUN
- an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
How To Use legerdemain In A Sentence
- There were fine nuggets of legerdemain, courtesy of the illusionist Paul Kieve.
- And I had come to be oppressed by what seemed to me the futility of art -- a pompous legerdemain, a consummate charlatanry that deceived not only its devotees but its practitioners. CHAPTER II
- 'Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but of all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
- Bell 12.142 of Davenport, Iowa, performed gastrotomy on a man, who, while attempting a feat of legerdemain, allowed a bar of lead, 10 1/8 inches long, 1 1/2 inches wide, and 9 1/2 ounces in weight, to slip into his stomach. Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
- The religion which has taught men truth -- above all things, _truth_ -- which teaches utter horror of a lie, which insists on the bare, bald reality in heaven and earth, which has taught men hatred of the false as the meanest and most unmanly thing existing -- this religion took its rise in claptrap miracles, was puffed into popularity by boasting pretensions, was born in trickery and nurtured by legerdemain! Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 Devoted to Literature and National Policy
- When that logic is exposed, as in this case, as intellectual legerdemain, he retreats to pitiful, pleading casuistry.
- Stripped to its essentials, her endeavor bestows a constitutional benediction upon the intellectual legerdemain that enables universities to practice racial discrimination.
- “Take back your beads, cummer; I know no legerdemain, can do no conjuring tricks,” said the mediciner, who, more moved than perhaps his rugged nature had anticipated, endeavoured to avoid receiving the ill omened gift. The Fair Maid of Perth
- Darwin knew he had a problem here, and the original idea to play a trick on the idea of selectionist explanation is a clever piece of legerdemain, that has grown since into a new scientific shibboleth, an artifice of logic, and one that has never been verified properly in practice, and which certainly fails any empirical test as we examine the reality of religion in world history. Darwiniana
- By what guessing or critical legerdemain one who claims loyalty to the word of God and ordinary intelligence can attempt to sweep away these definite and determinate statements, and crowd some insignificant worm of the dust into the place given to him who was in the beginning, who was with God and _who was The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism