trick
Part of speech: noun
verb
adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: card-games
games
government
heraldry
hobbies
lifestyle
monarchy
nautical
nobility
politics
transport
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.
Inflected forms:
form: tricks
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: tricks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: tricking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tricked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tricked
pos: verb
tags: past
form: tricker
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: trickest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.
pos: noun
examples: It was just a trick to say that the house was underpriced.
He played a trick on his sister as April Fool's Day.
gloss: A single element of a magician's (or any variety entertainer's) act; a magic trick.
pos: noun
examples: And for my next trick, I will pull a wombat out of a duffel bag.
gloss: An entertaining difficult physical action.
pos: noun
examples: That's a nice skateboard, but can you do any tricks on it?
Yo-yo tricks involving sleeping the yo-yo (like "walking the dog" and "rocking the baby") cannot be performed in space.
gloss: An effective, clever or quick way of doing something.
pos: noun
examples: tricks of the trade; what's the trick of getting this chair to fold up?
Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.
gloss: Mischievous or annoying behavior; a prank.
pos: noun
examples: the tricks of boys
They played a crude trick on the teacher.
gloss: A particular habit or manner; a peculiarity; a trait.
pos: noun
tags: dated
examples: a trick of drumming with the fingers; a trick of frowning
He hath a trick of Cœur de Lion's face.
The trick of that voice I do well remember.
gloss: A knot, braid, or plait of hair.
pos: noun
examples: I cannot tell , but it stirs me more than all your court curls , or your spangles , or your tricks
gloss: A sequence in which each player plays a card and a winning play is determined.
pos: noun
examples: I was able to take the second trick with the queen of hearts.
And now (as oft in some distemper'd state) / On one nice trick depends the gen'ral fate!
gloss: A sex act, chiefly one performed for payment; an act of prostitution.
pos: noun
tags: Canada
US
slang
examples: turn a trick
turn tricks
I see your teeth flash, Jamaican honey so sweet
Down where Lexington cross 47th Street.
Oh, she's a big girl, she's standing six-foot three,
Turning tricks for the dudes in the big city.
You lied to me, Leon. It was a rough trick.
Perhaps the most important thing a prostitute learns is how to "manage" the client; how to con him into spending more money than he planned. Learning how to perform tricks takes only a few minutes. Learning how to "hustle" the client takes longer.
"How did you get into all this?" "I started doing tricks when I was young and I don't mean the magic circle. I learned about sex from an early age. There was nothing else to do in Pitsea except heavy petting and getting F grades at school."
When he later asked her to strip and perform tricks for him, she refused, and he chased her away. She had similar experiences with other men until she eventually fell into prostitution: […]
gloss: A customer or client of a prostitute.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: As the businessman rounded the corner, she thought, "Here comes another trick."
Across 110th street / Woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ooh baby / Across 110th Street / You can find it all in the street
Ten minutes after she got down she broke luck. A white trick in a thirty-seven Buick picked her up. I timed her. She had racehorse speed.
gloss: A term of abuse.
pos: noun
tags: slang
vulgar
gloss: A daily period of work, especially in shift-based jobs.
pos: noun
tags: Pennsylvania
Western
examples: On third trick from 12 m. to 8 am, we have W. A. White, formerly operator at Wallula, who thus far has given general satisfaction.
Woodside Junction—On 8 hour basis, first trick $60, second trick $60, third trick $50.
The Union contends that Fifer was entitled to promotion to the position of Group Leader on the third trick in the Core Room Department.
gloss: A sailor's spell of work at the helm, usually two hours long.
pos: noun
examples: I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
gloss: A toy; a trifle; a plaything.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: The vviles and guiles that vvomen vvorke, / Diſſembled vvith an outvvard ſhevv: / The tricks and toyes that in them lurke, / The Cock that treads thẽ [them] ſhall not knovv, […]
gloss: A representation of arms that is drawn as an outline with labels to indicate colors.
pos: noun
examples: Heraldic Collections of various Heralds and others, containing Arms blazoned and in trick, grants of arms, pedigrees, etc.
The trick […] might be meant for a lion passant or for one rampant embelif […]
gloss: To fool; to cause to believe something untrue; to deceive.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: You tried to trick me when you said that house was underpriced.
I was once tricked into believing I had left my phone in the locker.
gloss: To draw (as contrasted with to blazon, which is to describe in words).
pos: verb
examples: The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, / Black as his purpose, did the night resemble / When he lay couched in the ominous horse, / Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd / With heraldry more dismal; head to foot / Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd / With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons […]
They forget that they are in the statutes: […] there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees.
gloss: To dress; to decorate; to adorn fantastically; often followed by up, off, or out.
pos: verb
examples: [T]his Pillar [the "Compounded Order"] is nothing in effect, but a Medlie, or an Amaſſe of all the precedent Ornaments, making a nevv kinde, by ſtealth, and though the moſt richly tricked, yet the pooreſt in this, that he is a borrovver of all his Beautie.
Tricking up their children in fine clothes.
Trick her off in air.
They are simple, but majestic, records of the feelings of the poet; as little tricked out for the public eye as his diary would have been.
gloss: To engage in prostitution or casual sex.
pos: verb
examples: 1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
[…] and suddenly it was Maryellin, he & I in the bed. The guy was tall, lean & hard. Absolutely lovely body. For me, it was like my old tricking days.
You trick for other people, you cheat me out of money, and then when you need a favour, you come back to me.
Asked whether one possible way for lesbians to increase sexual satisfaction within a relationship would be to "trick" outside it, Pearlman said that this could be a "terrific turn-on" if done right, but that she generally wouldn't recommend it because of the high risk of jealousy and breakups.
gloss: Involving trickery or deception.
pos: adj
examples: trick photography
gloss: Able to perform tricks.
pos: adj
examples: A trick pony
gloss: Defective or unreliable.
pos: adj
examples: a trick knee
gloss: Stylish or cool.
pos: adj
tags: US
slang
examples: Wow, your new sportscar is so trick.
Synonyms: con
gambit
ploy
rip-off
Derived words: bag of tricks
Barton-Nackman trick
bed trick
betrick
brain trick
card trick
confidence trick
conjuring trick
con trick
Davenport trick
dirty trick vase
dog's trick
dog trick
do the trick
every trick in the book
Gordie Howe hat trick
hat-trick
hidden-ball trick
how's tricks?
Indian rope trick
know every trick in the book
mango trick
miss a trick
one-trick
one-trick pony
one trick pony
one-trick-ponyism
one weird trick
overtrick
parlor trick
parlour trick
politricks
rope trick
Rosser's trick
Scott's trick
serve someone a trick
the oldest trick in the book
three-card trick
trick cyclist
trickdom
trickful
trickish
trickless
tricklike
tricklining
trickment
trick mode
trick of the light
trick of the trade
trick-or-treat
trick-or-treater
trick-or-treating
trick play
trickproof
trick question
tricksical
tricksome
tricksy
trick turner
trick up one's sleeve
trick wig
trickwork
tricky
turn a trick
turn the trick
turn tricks
undertrick
vanishing trick
Translations: