my new favorite word: Prestidigitation

say it 10 times in a row, i dare ya, well, say it once correctly and you get a star for the day!!

Word of the Day for Wednesday November 16, 2005

prestidigitation \pres-tuh-dij-uh-TAY-shuhn\, noun:
Skill in or performance of tricks; sleight of hand.

He was the man who had sat alone in a room for hundreds and
hundreds of hours, his fingers manipulating cards and coins
until he had learned and could perfectly reproduce every
form of prestidigitation found in books of magic lore.
-- Brian Moore, [1]The Magician's Wife

Some modern readers may be less surprised to find that
efforts to use accounting prestidigitation to deflect
borrowing away from current expenditure speedily came
unstuck and that a return to more conventional ideas of
financial integrity was rewarded by what seems to be a
generation of calm, not entirely due to gaps in the record.
--Peter Rycraft, "Fiscalitat i deute public en dues viles
del camp de Tarragona: Reus i Valls, segles," [2]English
Historical Review, November 2002

One of his magician friends told me that practitioners of
prestidigitation have great respect for their fellow
magicians who also hold forth behind the bar.
--Gary Regan, "Tricks and treats: cast a mystical spell on
guests with a magician bartender," [3]Nation's Restaurant
News, March 3, 2003
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Prestidigitation was adopted from French, from preste,
"nimble, quick" (from Italian presto, from Late Latin
praestus, "ready at hand") + Latin digitus, "finger." One
skilled in sleight of hand is a prestidigitator.