Word
trick
US/ˈtɹɪk/
UK/tɹˈɪk/
Definitions
01a deception or prank
n. something you do to fool someone, either as a joke or to be dishonest.
n. an act or scheme intended to deceive or outwit someone, ranging from harmless pranks to fraudulent swindles.
“The children played a trick on their teacher by hiding her glasses.”
“The email was a clever trick designed to steal passwords from unsuspecting employees by mimicking a bank's official website.”
02a clever method
n. a quick or effective way of doing something difficult.
n. a particular technique or knack that facilitates the efficient completion of a task.
“The trick to making good pasta is using plenty of salt in the water.”
“Once you learn the trick of balancing the load, the heavy wheelbarrow becomes much easier to manage on uneven ground.”
03magic or performance
n. an entertaining action or a piece of magic that looks impossible.
n. a single illusion or feat of skill performed for entertainment, such as by a magician or an acrobat.
“The magician performed a card trick that left the audience silent with wonder.”
“The skateboarder spent all afternoon practicing a new trick on the half-pipe before the competition started.”
04prostitution client
n. a person who pays for sex.
n. a customer of a sex worker. Informal and often carries a derogatory or clinical nuance depending on the speaker.
“The police were monitoring the street to identify regular tricks in the area.”
“The documentary explored the dangerous lives of women working on the streets and their interactions with various tricks.”
Slang
05nautical work shift
n. a sailor's turn to work at the wheel of a ship.
n. a specific period of duty at the helm of a vessel, typically lasting two hours.
“It was his turn for a trick at the wheel during the storm.”
“After a grueling two-hour trick at the helm in heavy seas, the helmsman was finally relieved by the next watch.”
Technical
06to deceive
v. to make someone believe something that is not true.
v. to deceive or outwit someone through a stratagem or artifice. Transitive; frequently used with the preposition 'into'.
“He tricked me into giving him my phone number by pretending to be a classmate.”
“The salesman attempted to trick the elderly couple into signing a contract they hadn't fully read.”
Antonyms
07unreliable or deceptive
adj. something that is likely to fail or break, or something meant to fool you.
adj. tending to deceive or fail unexpectedly; often used of body parts or mechanical objects.
“Be careful on the stairs because I have a trick knee that sometimes gives out.”
“The magician used a trick deck of cards to ensure he always drew the ace of spades.”
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English trikke, from Old Northern French trique (related to Old French trichier (“to defraud, act dishonestly, conceal, deceive, cheat”); > modern French tricher), itself possibly from Middle High German trechen (“to launch a shot at, play a trick on”), or one of its derivatives (e.g. Middle High German ūftrechen (“to do something to someone, hurt someone”), vertrechen (“to conceal, get over on someone”), zuotrechen (“to obtain falsely or deceitfully, wangle, finagle”), etc.); yet the Old French verb is equally likely to be derived from Vulgar Latin *triccāre, from Late Latin tricāre, from Latin trīcor, trīcārī (“dodge, search for detours; haggle, quibble”). The term has been connected to Middle Dutch treck, trec (“draw, line, desire, game move, cord, stratagem, ruse, trick”), from Middle Dutch trekken, trēken (“to pull, place, put, move”), from Old Dutch trekken, trekan (“to move, drag”), from Proto-Germanic trakjaną, trekaną (“to drag, scrape, pull”), from Proto-Indo-European *dreg- (“to drag, scrape”). If they are related, trick would be cognate with Low German trekken, Middle High German trecken, trechen, Danish trække, and Old Frisian trekka, Romanian truc and other Romance languages. Compare track, treachery, trig, and trigger.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Word family
Idioms
bag of tricks — A set of skills, techniques, items of information, or other resources used to help achieve professional or personal goals.
do the trick — To work; to be successful; to solve a problem; to be sufficient or adequate to fulfill a purpose.
how's tricks — Informal greeting roughly equivalent to How are you? or How's it going?
Jedi mind trick — A mental feat such as apparently inducing someone to act a certain way or reading someone's mind, achieved as if by magic or telepathy.
know every trick in the book — To know all there is to be known about a certain discipline.
penny-come-quick — a trick
trick of the trade — A shortcut or other quick, or very effective way of doing things, that professional workers learn from experience.
trick question — A question that attempts to elicit an answer in a certain way, usually incorrectly (i.e. that seems to have an obvious answer that is however incorrect), or a question that does not have a correct answer or that hides the real question or some difficulty.
trick up one's sleeve — Synonym of ace up one's sleeve.
tricked out — Of persons and things, decorated, dressed, or customized in an especially fancy, elaborate, or excessive manner.
Show all 12
turn a trick — To perform a sexual service for a customer.
whole box of tricks — Everything and anything associated with a certain enterprise.
Domain
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/trick