Meaning & use
magician
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Meanings
nouncountable
A performer who entertains an audience with tricks that seem impossible, such as making objects vanish or appear.
Grammar: Countable: a magician, two magicians.
Patterns
- a magician at something
- hire a magician
The magician pulled a coin from behind the boy's ear.
We hired a magician for my sister's birthday party.
The magician sawed his assistant in half, and the crowd gasped.
nouncountable
In stories and myths, a person who has supernatural powers and can cast spells.
Grammar: Countable; used in fantasy and fairy tales.
Patterns
- a magician who does something
In the story, a wise magician guards the mountain pass.
The magician raised his staff, and the storm cleared.
nouncountablefigurativeapproving
A person who is so skilled at something that the results seem almost magical.
Grammar: Countable; usually followed by with or of: a magician with numbers.
Patterns
- a magician with something
She is a magician with spreadsheets and can fix any formula.
The chef is a magician with simple ingredients.
Word forms
| plural | magicians |
|---|
Common combinations
- a stage magician
- A stage magician can make a bird vanish under a cloth.
- hire a magician
- They decided to hire a magician for the school fair.
- a children's magician
- The children's magician made balloon animals as well.
- an amateur magician
- My grandfather was an amateur magician who loved card tricks.
- magician's assistant
- The magician's assistant stepped into the cabinet.
Synonyms and how they differ
- illusionist
- Illusionist sounds more professional and is often used for large stage shows rather than close-up tricks.
- conjuror
- Conjuror is a British word for a performer of tricks and sounds a bit older than magician.
- sorcerer
- Sorcerer is used only for fictional beings with real powers, whereas a magician can simply be an entertainer.
- wizard
- Wizard suggests an old, wise user of real magic in fantasy, while magician is the more general word.
Word family
Commonly confused: magician or mathematician?
magician vs mathematician
A mathematician studies numbers and shapes; the two words end similarly but are very different in meaning.
Practice
Which person is a magician in the entertainment sense?
Choose one answer.
A magician performs tricks that seem impossible, such as vanishing a card. The other jobs and hobbies involve no tricks.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “magician”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.