- hocus pocus
[hocus pocus 词源字典]
- hocus pocus: [17] Hocus pocus came from a phoney Latin phrase – in full hax pax max Deus adimax – used by travelling conjurers to impress their audiences. It was originally used for such a ‘conjurer’, or for a ‘trickster’ in general (‘a Persian hocus pocus performed rare tricks with hands and feet’, Sir Thomas Herbert, Travels into Africa and the Greater Asia 1634), but this had largely died out by the end of the 17th century, leaving ‘trickery, deception’ in full possession. Hoax [18] probably originated as a shortened version of hocus.
=> hoax[hocus pocus etymology, hocus pocus origin, 英语词源]