hocus
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Shortened from hocus-pocus. The verb is from the noun.
Inflected forms:
form: hocuses
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: hocusses
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: hocusing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: hocussing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: hocused
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: hocused
pos: verb
tags: past
form: hocussed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: hocussed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: hocuses
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To play a trick on, to trick (someone); to hoax; to cheat.
pos: verb
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 […]
HOCUS. To cheat. Hence the more modern term hoax.
“Well, I reckon you have lived in the country. I thought maybe you was trying to hocus me again […].”
“You really are married by a priest or parson, not just hocussing me?”
gloss: To stupefy (someone) with drugged liquor (especially in order to steal from them).
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: […] but him they intended to disable by a trick then newly introduced amongst robbers, and termed hocussing, i. e., clandestinely drugging the liquor of the victim with laudanum […]
The last of the criminal cases are the thieves, who admit of being classified as follows: […] (2.) Those who hocus or plunder persons by stupefying […]
[…] he frantically reiterated his charge, that he had been robbed and hocussed in that house, that night, by Mrs. Brandon.
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.
gloss: To drug (liquor).
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: […] I think the wine of them two Governors was—I will not say a hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind.
[He] served them out three fingers of rum apiece, which the bo’sun took upon himself to hocus. By latest accounts, they’re sleeping it off […]
gloss: To adulterate (food).
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: I had a healthy appetite, but the tradition was that all the food was unutterably bad, adulterated, hocussed.
“Those rotten Huns have been hocussing our grub.”
gloss: A magician, illusionist, one who practises sleight of hand.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: Certainly he was the bravest Ambodexter of his time, and this blinded age, or that ever was among us dull Northern people; and among the multitude of his Tricks, I shall commend to the Hocusses of Bartholomew Fair, for their information and edification, this Legerdemain (for it is supposed it will hardly be practicable any more in the Pulpit;)
I called freely for what was in the house, which was readily brought me; but when the servants beheld with what cele[r]ity, (Hocus like) and cleanly conveyance, I had disposed of what was before me, they verily believed in one week, I would cause a dearth in the house […]
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.
gloss: One who cheats or deceives.
pos: noun
tags: 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.
I have the Originals at This Present in my Hand, and there is the Paw of Tong and Otes so manifestly in the very Writing of them; as if they had not thought it worth the while to Disguise the Cheat. It was an Imposture, that their very Souls, Heads, Hearts, and Hands were All at Work upon; And the Forgery Vndeniable; only Tong Himself was the Master-Hocus.
gloss: Trick; trickery.
pos: noun
examples: As in almost every Chapter of his Book, so in this Seventh, he has a new Hocus to carry on his old design […]
The Jugler and the Judge, too, may complain,
For both now strive to cheat the World in vain;
In slight and shift and Trick they both agree,
But a quick Eye may all their Hocus see:
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.
He was amused by the uncompromising attitude that said to Goldfinger and to the room, ‘All men are bastards and cheats. Don’t try any masculine hocus on me. I don’t go for it. I’m in a separate league.’
gloss: Drugged liquor.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
Related words: hocus-pocus
Translations: