Cantrip
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A spell or incantation; a trifling magic trick.
"Coffins stood round, like open presses, That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip slight Each in its cauld hand held a light […]"
- 2 A wilful piece of trickery or mischief.
- 3 A minor spell, typically one that can be cast without preparation.
Example
More examples"Coffins stood round, like open presses, That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip slight Each in its cauld hand held a light […]"
Etymology
From Middle Scots cantrip, cantrap (“a magic charm; a trick”). Further origin obscure, but likely a corruption of Scottish Gaelic canntaireachd (identical to Irish cantaireacht), referring to a system of musical notation consisting of a series of otherwise meaningless syllables memorised by pipers in learning their tunes; this was then used similarly to abracadabra. Regardless of details, ultimately derived from Latin cantō (“to sing, chant, play an instrument”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.