trick

[[t]trɪ̱k[/t]]

♦♦♦

tricks, tricking, tricked

1) N-COUNT A trick is an action that is intended to deceive someone.

We are playing a trick on a man who keeps bothering me.

2) VERB If someone tricks you, they deceive you, often in order to make you do something.

[V n] Stephen is going to be pretty upset when he finds out how you tricked him...

[V n into -ing/n] His family tricked him into going to Pakistan, and once he was there, they took away his passport...

[V way prep/adv] His real purpose is to trick his way into your home to see what he can steal.

3) N-COUNT A trick is a clever or skilful action that someone does in order to entertain people.

He shows me card tricks.

4) N-COUNT A trick is a clever way of doing something.

Everything I cooked was a trick of my mother's...

It is not just a little trick you can pick up in half an hour.

5) → See also , conjuring trick, hat-trick

6) PHRASE: V inflects If something does the trick, it achieves what you wanted. [INFORMAL]

Sometimes a few choice words will do the trick.

7) PHRASE: v PHR If someone tries every trick in the book, they try every possible thing that they can think of in order to achieve something. [INFORMAL]

Companies are using every trick in the book to stay one step in front of their competitors.

8) PHRASE: v-link PHR If you say that something is a trick of the light, you mean that what you are seeing is an effect caused by the way that the light falls on things, and does not really exist in the way that it appears.

Her head appears to be on fire but that is only a trick of the light.

9) PHRASE: V inflects, with brd-neg If you say that someone does not miss a trick, you mean that they always know what is happening and take advantage of every situation. [INFORMAL]

When it comes to integrating their transport systems, the French don't miss a trick.

10) PHRASE: trick inflects The tricks of the trade are the quick and clever ways of doing something that are known by people who regularly do a particular activity.

To get you started, we have asked five successful writers to reveal some of the tricks of the trade.

11) PHRASE: v-link PHR (disapproval) If you say that someone is up to their tricks or up to their old tricks, you disapprove of them because they are behaving in the dishonest or deceitful way in which they typically behave. [INFORMAL]

I have no respect for my father who, having remarried, is still up to his old tricks.

12) you can't teach an old dog new tricks → see dog