Etymology and History
Sleight, meaning dexterity or deceptiveness, comes from the Old Norse slœgð, meaning cleverness, cunning, slyness. Sleight of hand is often mistakenly written as slight of hand or slide of hand. Slight descends from slettr, meaning plain, flat, even, smooth, level.
Seneca the Younger, in the 1st century CE, famously compared rhetoric techniques and illusionist techniques.
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