trick
Forms
- Plural
- tricks
- present (v1)
- trick
- past (v2)
- tricked
- past participle (v3)
- tricked
- present participle
- tricking
- 3rd person singular
- tricks
Definitions
1.Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.
- He played a trick on his sister as April Fool's Day.
- It was just a trick to say that the house was underpriced.
2.An entertaining difficult physical action.
- 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.
3.An effective, clever or quick way of doing something.
4.A single element of a magician's (or any variety entertainer's) act; a magic trick.
- And for my next trick, I will pull a wombat out of a duffel bag.
1.To fool; to cause to believe something untrue; to deceive.
- 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.
2.To draw (as contrasted with to blazon, which is to describe in words).
- They forget that they are in the statutes: […] there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees.
3.To dress; to decorate; to adorn fantastically; often followed by up, off, or out.
- Tricking up their children in fine clothes.
- 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.
- Trick her off in air.
4.To engage in prostitution or casual sex.
- You trick for other people, you cheat me out of money, and then when you need a favour, you come back to me.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #2776
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
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”).