Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word prestidigitation. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word prestidigitation, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say prestidigitation in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word prestidigitation you have here. The definition of the word prestidigitation will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofprestidigitation, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
He borrowed another hat and displayed its perfect emptiness; he held up his empty hands: "This is one of the most marvellous bits of prestidigitation known," he said. "You have all seen this hat holds nothing in the world: I will now see if I can extract anything from its emptiness. You can all observe my hands go nowhere but into the hat, and they are both open and turned to you. Yet what is this?"
(by extension) A show of skill or deceitful cleverness.
The more modest place became the picture better; yet, as my eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, all the characteristic qualities came out--all the hesitations disguised as audacities, the tricks of prestidigitation by which, with such consummate skill, he managed to divert attention from the real business of the picture to some pretty irrelevance of detail.