Abracadabra - Magic word used to help magician "make something happen". In reality, it is derived from ancient cabalistic symbols and at one time was believed to hold real power.

Act - the collected tricks and routines that you present at a single seating or performance.

Aviator - Brand of cards manufactured by U.S. Playing Card Co. Design is symmetrical. Many gimmicked card decks are made with this back design. Also known as Fox Lake.

BEE - Special back design of cards manufactured by U.S. Playing Card Co. Small scale pattern with no border makes this type of deck excellent for card sleights, as the pattern helps camouflage the moves.

Billet: a small piece of paper, often folded, upon which a message has been written, usually for a mind-reading effect

Black Art: The use of a black cloth background to aid in concealing or highlighting objects.

Blind (See False Shuffle): Any method of shuffling, riffling, cutting or culling, designed to appear regular, but in reality retaining, or arranging, some preconceived order.

Book test - an act of mental magic in which a spectator selects letters, words, illustrations or pages from a book, and you divine or predict them.

Break: A minute division held in the pack to mark the position of a number of cards or of a single card.

In conjuring the break is usually employed when the pack is held in the left hand as for dealing. The flesh at the outermost phalange of the little finger is pressed against the division at the right side at the inner corner (the finger tip is not inserted between the packets) and the remaining fingers are held together at the same side, concealing the subterfuge.

This break is often taken by the ball of the right thumb at the inner end of the pack, prior to an overhand shuffle, the fingers being at the outer end. The cards are shuffled into the left hand until those above the break have dropped; the remaining cards are then thrown upon those in the left hand. This is an easy method much used to bring a desired card to the top of the pack.

Bridge: To press the sides or ends of half the pack together so that the packet is made convex, if it be the upper half, or concave if it be the lower half. This is done to mark the position of a card or a number of cards. If a bridged pack is cut, this cut almost invariably will be at the bridge.

Bridge-size cards - slightly smaller than poker-size cards, measure 2¼" in width by 3½" in length.

Broken Wand Ceremony - Special ceremony conducted at the funeral of a magician in which a wand is broken to symbolize the loss of magical power. First conducted by the Society of American Magicians at Houdini's memorial service in 1926.

Card Force - A spectator is forced to pick a specific card (often the top card). The spectator thinks it was a free choice. There are many methods of forcing a card.

Clean - a trick finish clean if everything (including the hands) can be examined at the end

Closer - the last trick or routine performed in an act or at a single seating

Close-up magic -- is when the magician performs right under your nose. There is no possibility of camera tricks, mirrors or trap doors. Quite often the magic will involve simple everyday items such as cigarettes, coins, finger rings and of course playing cards

Color Change: Visibly changing one card into another card. The magician usually changes the color of the cards.

Confetti wand - a magic wand that shoots out confetti at the magician's command.

Control - any method that moves a specific playing card or cards to a known position in the deck

Control to the top - The card is returned to the center of the deck. You keep a finger break with your little finger and then cut the card to the top of the deck.

Court card - a jack, queen, or king of any suit

Crimp: To bend a part of a card, usually a corner, upward or downward, so that its position in the pack may be determined by sight. It is used to locate a single card or a stock which may be above or below the crimped card. It is possible to cut to such a card without glancing at the pack.

Cull: To secure certain cards at the top or bottom in the act of mixing the cards with the overhand shuffle.

Double lift - You turn over the top two cards as one. Take a finger break under the top two cards and simply turn them over as one.

Elmsley Count: A false counting method to openly count four cards as four, but conceal one of the four cards. This count is often used in packet tricks.

Exposure - revealing the secret method to a magic effect

Face - the side of a playing card that shows its identity by value and suit

False Count: Any method of openly counting cards while concealing one or more cards. The Elmsley Count is one well known example.

False Deals: To appear to deal the top card when in fact the magician deals a card from another part of the deck. Common false deals include the second deal, the bottom deal, and the middle deal.

False Shuffle: Any method of shuffling, riffling, cutting or culling, designed to appear regular, but in reality retaining, or arranging, some preconceived order.

False turn over - you appear to turn the card over but you actually show the same side twice. Hold the card face up in the palm of your hand near the finger tips. Turn your hand over but at the same time push your thumb under the card and turn it over. You are actually turning the card over twice which shows the same side twice.

Finger Break - Your little finger is placed in a small gap in the cards which allows you to control the card above or below the finger break.

Flourish - any obvious display of skill

Force - to secretly make an audience member perform a desired action without his or her awareness

Ghost count - See Elmsley count.

Hocus Pocus - Nonsense phrase used to help the magician "make something happen". Some feel that the word is a corruption of a Latin phrase used in the Mass, others say that it was the name of a magician. Still another source considers it a reference to the Norse folktale sorcerer Ochus Bochus. It could be a meaningless phrase created for its sound alone.

IBM - International Brotherhood of Magicians - Founded in 1922

Impromptu magic - tricks or effects that can be done without any special advance preparation

Jog: A card extending for a fraction of an inch from any part of the pack. It marks the position of a desired card or of a stock of cards. When it is at the inner end of the pack the right hand in taking the pack for an overhand shuffle applies pressure with the ball of the thumb, turning the jog into a break, after which the cards are shuffled to this break and thrown, bringing the desired card or cards to the top. A jog at the right side of the pack, when it is held by the left hand as for dealing, may be turned into a break by pulling down on the protruding edge with the tip of the left little finger, after which the pass may be made, or the card may be shuffled to the top.

Injog: A card protruding beyond the inner end of the pack. During an overhand shuffle a card is injogged by moving the right hand, with its packet, inwards towards the body. The left thumb draws off the top card of the right packet, thus causing it to protrude beyond the inner end. The remainder of the cards are then shuffled off.

Outjog: The same procedure, but the right hand moves outwards, causing the card to extend beyond the outer end. In the course of certain tricks, the outjog and injog may be employed during a single shuffle.

Joints and Phalanges: The joint or phalange nearest the palm is the first, or the innermost; the second is at the middle; the third is the outermost, that at the nail.

Misdirection: The application of psychological principles or strategies in order to control the focus of the spectator. An example of misdirection is that a large movement will misdirect a spectator’s attention away from a smaller movement (the concealed sleight).

Overhand Shuffle: The old-fashioned method of shuffling the cards from hand to hand.

Opener - The first trick or routine performed in an act or at a single seating

Parlor magic - magic that can be performed effectively in a small room

Patter - the words used or stories told by the magician while performing a trick

Penetration - a person or solid object passes through another through another person or solid object without harm to either

Prestidigitation - Phrase coined by French magician Jules deRovere in 1815; loosely translated, the term means "performed with quick fingers".

Riffle Shuffle: The method of shuffling on the table by springing the ends of two packets into each other.

Run: During an overhand shuffle, to draw cards one at a time off the packet held by the right hand with the left thumb.

SAM - Society of American Magicians

Servante - Pouch or shelf positioned on the magician's side of a table, hidden from the spectator's view, but allowing the magician to dispose of items by secretly dropping them into or onto the servante while the hands seem to always remain in full view above the table.

Setup - in magic, cards or other props are sometimes put in a specific order or position before a performance. This is called a setup.

Shuffle Off: A genuine overhand shuffle, in which the cards are dropped from the right hand indiscriminately, in small packets.

Sim Sala Bim - "Magic words" made popular by Dante; in fact, his show was named Sim Sala Bim. Actually, it was a magical phrase taken from a popular Danish fairy tale (Dante was from Denmark).

Sleight-of-hand - any cunning or crafty trickery performed with the hands

Stock: A number of cards, which may or may not be in an arranged sequence, which have been placed in some particular place in the pack, usually the top or bottom.

Suspension: an illusion in which a person hangs in the air without moving, either partially supported (such as at the end of a pole).

Switch: Secretly exchange one card or coin for another.

SYM - Society of Young Magicians

Theme act - an act based around a central premise or prop

Throw: During an overhand shuffle, to drop from the right hand packet onto the cards held by the left hand a number of cards in one packet, these cards retaining their order. Cards are usually thrown from above a break.

Tilt move - The back of the top card is tilted up from the rest of the deck making the deck look deeper. The spectator's card is inserted under the tilt which makes it look like it is going into the center of the deck. Actually it is the second card from the top.

Top Change - The card in one hand is changed with the top card of the deck which is in the other hand. You temporary move the two hands together and slide the card off the deck while putting the card in your other hand on the deck.

Topit - Large pocket in the lining of a jacket that allows the magician to vanish items by tossing them secretly and smoothly into the pocket.

Transformation - one of the basic effects in magic, in which an object changes into an entirely different item.

Transposition - one of the basic effects in magic, in which two or more objects or people exchange places

Triple lift - You turn over the top three cards as one. Take a finger break under the top three cards and simply turn them over as one.

Undercut: To draw out a packet of cards from the bottom of the pack prior to an overhand shuffle.

Vanish - a disappearence or the act of making something or someone disappear

Woofle dust - an imaginary powder with magical properties.

Many of these card magic and sleight of hand terms in the magic glossary were taken from Expert Card Technique by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue and originated by S. W. Erdnase to describe the procedures given in The Expert at the Card Table.