noun · verb · 8 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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/ˈhəʊkəs/
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
rhymes with -əʊkəs
CMU ARPABET:HH OW1 K AH0 S
Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
1
noun
Meaning 1
A magician, illusionist, one who practises sleight of hand.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
Examples
1689, Roger L’Estrange (translator), Twenty-Two Select Colloquies out of Erasmus Roterodamus, London: R. Bentley & R. Sare, p. 33, ’Tis rather to exercise our Curiosity, and keep us from Idleness, or worse Diversions, as running mad after Buffoons, Dice, Fortune-tellers, and Hocus’s, &c.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
noun
Meaning 2
One who cheats or deceives.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
Examples
1685, Robert South, “A Sermon Preached at Christ-Church, Oxon, Before the University, May 3. 1685” in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, London: Thomas Bennett, 1692, p. 523, [...] when thy Brother has lost all that ever he had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think thus to lick him whole again, only with thy Tongue? just like that old formal Hocus, who denyed a Beggar a farthing, and put him off with his Blessing.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
3
noun
Meaning 3
Trick; trickery.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
1871, Benjamin Jowett, letter to Florence Nightingale dated 29 September, 1871, cited in Edward Tyas Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, London: Macmillan, 1913, Volume 2, Part 7, Chapter 1, p. 223, [...] I do not agree with you in thinking that there are no difficulties, although the old difficulties, about the origin of evil &c., are generally a hocus of Theologians.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
4
noun
Meaning 4
Drugged liquor.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
5
verb
Meaning 5
To play a trick on, to trick (someone); to hoax; to cheat.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
1677, Poor Robin’s Visions, London: Arthur Boldero, Eighth Vision, p. 117, [...] to contemplate the miseries of a poor Poetick life, or study some well laid plot to Hocus his Landlady into a further credence or belief [...]
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
6
verb
Meaning 6
To stupefy (someone) with drugged liquor (especially in order to steal from them).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
Examples
1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, “The Hocussing of Cigarette” in Baroness Orczy’s Old Man in the Corner: The Old Man in the Corner, The Case of Miss Elliott, The Glasgow Mystery, Landsville, Pennsylvania: Coachwhip Publications, 2010, p. 243, Then I had a good think on the subject of the hocussing of Cigarette, and I was reluctantly bound to admit that once again the man in the corner had found the only possible solution to the mystery.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
7
verb
Meaning 7
To drug (liquor).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
8
verb
Meaning 8
To adulterate (food).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
Shortened from hocus-pocus. The verb is from the noun.
