Words / L / General

legerdemain

noun/ˌlɛdʒədəˈmeɪn/

C2CEFR level
88/100Rarity: very rare
LiteraryRegister

Skilful deception or sleight of hand, literal or figurative.

Through accounting legerdemain, the losses were made to vanish from the balance sheet.

Similar: sleight of hand, trickery, conjuring

Origin: From French léger de main 'light of hand'.

Topic: trickery in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: trickery