legerdemain
leg·er·de·main/ˈlɛd͡ʒ.əɹ.dəˌmeɪn/noun
legerdemain is spelled L-E-G-E-R-D-E-M-A-I-N, 4 syllables: leg·er·de·main. The wrong spelling people search most is ledgerdemain: about 180 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 27 of all searches for the word. Legerdemain is a noun meaning “Sleight of hand; "magic" trickery”. The plural of legerdemain is legerdemains.
How many letters and syllables are in legerdemain?
| Letters | 11: L-E-G-E-R-D-E-M-A-I-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4: leg·er·de·main |
| In writing | about once in every 22 million words; the 141,699th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, ledgerdemain, about 180 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell legerdemain?
Legerdemain is spelled L-E-G-E-R-D-E-M-A-I-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 27 of the searches for legerdemain in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is legerdemain?
Legerdemain appears about once in every 22 million words in written English, the 141,699th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce legerdemain?
- UK /ˌlɛd͡ʒ.ə.dɨˈmeɪn/
- US /ˈlɛd͡ʒ.əɹ.dəˌmeɪn/
Legerdemain has 4 syllables, split leg·er·de·main in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-legerdemain.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of legerdemain
- legerdemains plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does legerdemain mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Sleight of hand; "magic" trickery.
- 2
A show of skill or deceitful ability.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Legerdemain in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense sleight of hand:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | escamoteo, prestidigitación |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does legerdemain come from?
From Middle English legerdemeyn, lechardemane, from Old French léger de main (literally “light of hand”), a phrase that meant “dexterous, skillful at fooling others (especially through sleights of hand)”, which was however treated as a noun when it was borrowed by late Middle English. The Modern French descendant léger de main of the Old French phrase is archaic but still sometimes found in older literature and simply means “skillful” without any connotation of sleight of hand.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).