sleight
/slaɪt/ noun, proper noun
Forms sleights
- noun Cunning; craft; artful practice.
- noun (countable) An artful trick; sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation.
- noun Dexterous practice; dexterity; skill.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English sleighte, sleyght, sleythe, from Old Norse slœgð (“cunning”), from Proto-Germanic *slōgiþō, from *slōgiz (“cunning”) (whence English sly). Doublet of sly and slöjd/sloyd.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Cunning; craft; artful practice. [Obs.] "His sleight and his covin." Chaucer.
- noun An artful trick; sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation.
Etymology [OE. sleighte, sleihte, sleithe, Icel. sl (for sl) slyness, cunning, fr. sl (for sl) sly, cunning. See Sly.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sleight”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details