VOCABULARY FOR MAGICIANS

Ambitious Card Routine (ACR) Card Location

Card effect where a chosen card keeps on
returning to the top of the pack.
Angles
Audience sitting at specific position or angle
can spot the secret. Usually extreme left or
right or behind. We use the term like “hey
since this trick is 'angled' it can only be done
with limited audience viewpoints.
Biddle Move
A move used to bring selected card to the
bottom of the deck.
Any method that allows the magician to find
or locate a selected card after it has been
returned to the pack.
Center Tear
A special way of tearing up paper so that the
centre piece with the message is retained by
the magician.
Change
Changing one card for another.
Charlier

Black Art One handed flourish cut or pass.

Anyone can't see black on black which is Classic Force

useful or secret compartments and secret
Making a spectator choose a card by fanning
hiding places.
them and timing the force card to land under
Bottom Charge their fingers.

Move used to change cards. Chop

Break It’s a code word for a magnet.

A slight opening secretly held in a deck of Chop Cup

cards.
Book Pass Force
Technique of shuffling where we take a group
of cards then throw them on the other pile,
and hold the top card and keep it on top.
This leaves the selected card on top.
Bridge-Sized Deck
Cup with secret magnet used with a magnetic
ball which can be made to vanish or appear
at will using the magnet.
Classic Palm
Holding an object in the center of the palm,
gripped by the palm muscles lightly like
holding a coin.

A deck of cards slightly smaller than a poker Cold (deck)

deck, measuring 2-1/4’ wide are frequently Switching in a stacked deck.
used because it give the magician an
advantage in certain tricks because of their Conjurer
smaller width.
A magician
Card Discovery
Control
The end of card tricks during which the
spectator’s card is revealed or produced in a Any method that allows the performer to
“magical”manner. move a particular card or cards to a specific
location in the pack.
Crimp
A bend or crease in a playing card in such a
way that you are able to locate it in the deck
by feel alone. The crimp can be put
anywhere on the card, but the corners or
long sides are generally used.
CC / MC
Conjurer’s / magician's choice where an
object is forced on a spectator by deciding if
he takes or discards the objects selected.
Daub
Conjurer’s (magician’s) wax. Used to stick
things together temporarily.
Deal
To take cards off the top of the deck.
Deal Seconds
Take the second card looking like the top.
Deal Middles
Take a middle card looking like the top.
Deal Bottoms
Take the bottom card looking like the top.
DL
Double lift. Lifting two cards as one.
Do As I Do
When you have the spectator do the same
things as you do.
Double Cut Force
The double cut force is a way of forcing the
top card of the deck.
Double Lift
This is were the two top cards are drawn up
to be shown as one card alone. A fingerbreak
between the two top cards before the sleight
is executed, is very nice. Otherwise it
requires really light fingers.
Double Sided Cards
Simply a double sided card which you can buy
or make for many good effects.
Double Undercut
Card Control used to return a card back to
the top of the deck.
Effect
A sleight or magic trick
Face
The face of a card shows its value and suit.
Face Cards, Picture cards, or Court Cards
All of the jacks, queens, and kings.
False Cut
Any cut that leaves the deck in the same
order as it was before the cut.
False Shuffle
Any shuffle that leaves the deck in the same
order as it was before the shuffle.
False Transfer
An object is put or taken into one hand while
being retained in the other.
Finger Break
Move used to return to cards easily.
Flash
Allowing the spectator to briefly see the face
of any card.
Flourish
A display of skill with cards. Usually not a
trick but an important part of a trick like one
handed cut, fan, and ribbon spread.
Force
Causing a spectator to select a particular
card or cards when the spectator thinks the
choice was freely made.
French Drop
A false transfer with a coin or small object.
Free Choice
When a spectator really has a free choice, no
force.
Gimmick / Gaff
A secret device used in an execution of a
magic trick.
Glide
The glide is simply pulling back a bottom
card so that the second to the bottom card is
revealed a little (this is done face-down
though, so no-one can see the faces) It is only
revealed for touch. The second to bottom
card is the slipped out as if it was the bottom
card. (Usually it looks 'the bottom card is
shown. then the deck is facedown (no
attention drawn to this), then the bottom
card is slipped out.
Glimpse
Secretly noting a card while holding or
shuffling the pack.
Greek Shift
Move used to shift a card, or make a false
cut.
Greek Shuffle
False Shuffle. Watch your angles.
Haunted Deck
Spectator freely selects a card, and that card
is placed back onto the deck. The deck is cut
and the spectator is told that the deck will
remove the card by itself and then watches,
as the deck removes the card! The deck can
then be given to the spectator to reveal no
gimmick is involved.
Hindu Shuffle
An effective way to keep a card or several at
the bottom of the deck.
Indicator Card
A playing card used to identify the location,
value, or suit of a different card, usually
selected by the audience.
Invisible Deck
This deck is a trick deck wherein the backs of
the cards used have a thick, non-slick
surface. The cards are placed back to back in
certain pairs.
IT/ITR
Invisible thread, Invisible thread reel. Thin
nylon thread that you can't see is used to
levitate stuff.
Impromptu
A trick that can be performed at a moments
notice, usually with everyday objects and
little or no preparation.
Jog
A card sleight in which a card is made to
secretly protrude from the deck to a slight
extent, thus enabling the magician to
secretly locate it or the card next to it at a
future moment.
Key Card
A card, generally gimmicked, which is used to
locate a particular card or cards in the deck.
Lapping
Dropping an object into one's lap to vanish it
(done while seated).
Load
To secretly put an object into a location eg A
ball under a cup or a rabbit into a hat.
Legerdemain
A French term for magic of the hands or
sleight of hand.
M5
Powerful Neomidium magnet used for PK
effects, balances, stopping watches, and
vanishes.
Magic
The art of entertaining an audience by
performing illusions that baffle and amaze,
often by giving the impression that something
impossible has been achieved, almost as if
the performer had magic or supernatural
powers. Yet, this illusion of magic is created
entirely by natural means. The practitioners
of this mystery art may be called magicians,
conjurors, illusionists or prestidigitators.
Manipulator
A magician with a showy sleight of hand act,
often set to music, who produces cards/coins
etc or multiplies balls in the air.
Marked Deck
A deck a cards with markings on the back to
identify the front. You can name any marked
card by looking at the back of it.
Mechanic's Grip
The mechanics grip is one of the most often
used for false dealing. It is sort of a
compromise between the Erdnase grip and
the full grip. The forefinger curls around the
outer right corner of the deck while the other
three fingers curl around the side of the
deck.
Miscalling a Card
In card magic, purposely giving an incorrect
identification of a card.
Misdirection
Getting the spectators to concentrate
elsewhere when a move takes place.
Monte
Famous con game where three cards are
thrown down and the mark has to find the
queen/ace etc. Due to sleight of hand, he
never wins.
Muggle / Mark
Non magician or subject for a con game.
One Ahead
Principle often used in mentalism where the
magician writes down the name of an item
previously discovered instead of the current
item he is trying to guess.
One Way Deck
When we arrange the back of the deck
pictures all the same way and when the
spectator picks his card just switch the deck
around. Then it is the only one that is
backwards. No more fake shuffles!
One Way Back Deck
A deck where the back design is not the same
upside down enabling a card or cards to be
located because they are the wrong way up.
Out
An ending to a trick that the magician uses if
the trick goes wrong.
Overhand Shuffle
A shuffle where you hold the cards in your
right hand and you pull them off a few at a
time into your left hand.
Palming a Card
Method of concealing a card.
Pass
A sleight.
Patter
The talk a magician uses to accompany a
trick.
Pinch Servante

Vanish done by snapping coin from Secret shelf or compartment behind

lengthways in the finger tips to edgeways, magicians table.
incorparating a ROV element. Also a vanish
used by carring a sponge ball from pinched Shell
between fingers to a palm.
A hollowed out coin or ball which fits over
PK the real object allowing vanish and
reproductions.
Psychokenesis. e.x. moving things around
usually done with threads or strong magnets. Shuffle

Pull The process of mixing a deck of cards.

Device on elastic which pulls object up sleeve Silk

or under jacket.
A silk handkerchief.
Raven Sleeving
Magnetic Pull device used to vanish a small
Dropping an object up a sleeve to vanish it.
coin or magnetic object.
Slide
Readers / Paper
A tube to get an object to an impossible
Marked cards which can be read from their
location. Eg Marked coin to ball of wool or
backs.
object inside nested boxes.
Reversed Card Slip Force
Any card that is face up in a face-down pack
A Quick Force.
(or faced down in a face-up pack).
Sponge
Riffle Shuffle
A sponge ball
Common shuffle that is used often.
Spot Cards
ROV
Any card from ace through ten in any suit.
Retention of vision vanish. Put vanish for a
coin. Springing Cards
R/S A flourish in which you bend the cards, let
go, and catch them with the other hand.
The use of rough or smooth compounds on
cards which makes them stick or slide easily. Stack
Sandwiched Card A prearranged deck or part of the deck of
cards
Any card that is placed or located between
two other pre-designated cards. Steal
Self-Working Tricks A slight to obtain an object secretly. e.x.
stealing a ball from under a cup or stealing a
Tricks that don't require sleight of hand.
card from the pack.
Stranger Cards
A stranger card is a card taken from another
deck and added to the deck you're using. This
allows us to perform many tricks in a much
more mystifying way.
Stripper
This deck is cut to make the top is wider than
the bottom. If a card is place in upside down,
the wider end of the card now matches with
the decks lower end, making it easy to locate
or even slip the card right out of the middle
of the deck.
Stooge / Shill / Stick
Audience member who is actually planted as
part of the act and who acts in a cooperative
manner.
Sucker effect
A trick where the spectator is lead to believe
he has worked it out, only to be proved very
wrong.
Svengali Deck
The Svengali Deck consists of 26 ordinary
cards, all different, and 26 short cards all of
the same suit and value. The latter may be
narrower as well as shorter, but short
duplicates only are generally used. The pack
is set up by arranging the two sets
alternately, thus every other card from the
top is a card of the same suit and value.
Swami Gimmick
Small writing device hidden under the nail
used to "predict" what a spectator says by
writing it seceretly after she says it.
Switch
A sleight or move in which one object is
secretly substituted for another.
Talking
Not the words spoken, but an inadvertent
noise made by the props which can give away
the trick.
Topit
Jacket with secret receptacle to vanish
things.
T&R
Torn and Restored. The magician rips
something up into many pieces (eg playing
card/paper etc) and then "restores" it. The
method lies in switching in a new undamaged
item.
TT
Thumb tip. Plastic thumb cover for vanishing
and reproducing small objects. Can be used
for small liquid/powder (eg salt) vanishes and
appearances.
Vanish
The act of making an object become
nonexistent.
Woofle Dust / Magic Dust
Excuse for going to a pocket to get rid of a
vanished item.
Zombie
An effect with a floating ball. Zombie
type/zombie gimmick - a secret rod to make
an object float usually under cover of a
cloth.