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sleight(noun) Adroitness in using the hands. Synonyms: dexterityUsage: Only through his unequaled sleight can the juggler manage to keep eight chainsaws safely aloft.
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Quote:Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of compactly folding up my bank-notes for security’s sake, abstracts the notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine, when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!
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Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
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The noun sleight refers to being able to use your hands with ease, especially when doing a trick. Sleight is often used in the phrase "sleight of hand." If you are a good magician, you can make a coin disappear with sleight of hand.
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The noun sleight refers to cunning or cleverness, especially when used to trick or deceive. You can use a sleight of mind to trick yourself into believing that if you eat a box of cookies at dinnertime, it counts as dinner. The word sleight has a long history and comes from the Middle English word sleghth, which also meant "cunning." Back then, people would have pronounced the "gh" — even though today we don't.
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sleight (n.)
"cunning," early 14c. alteration of sleahthe (c. 1200), from Old Norse sloegð "cleverness, cunning, slyness," from sloegr (see sly). Meaning "skill, cleverness, dexterity" is from late 14c. Meaning "feat or trick requiring quickness and nimbleness of the hands" is from 1590s. Term sleight of hand is attested from c. 1400.
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"Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand."
William Congreve
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