tricks

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of trick.

   The street performer's sleight-of-hand tricks drew a large crowd.

   Years of practice taught her dozens of skateboarding tricks.

   Note

   One plural serves every kind of trick: the swindler's, the magician's, the skateboarder's, and the clever shortcut someone teaches you. An older use, now dated, made tricks a person's habits or peculiarities of manner. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb. A determiner in front (her tricks, those tricks) marks the noun. A subject in front and an object after (she tricks him) marks the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of trick.

   The con artist tricks lonely investors into handing over their savings.

   A camouflaged moth tricks predators into overlooking it on the bark.

   Note

   Here the word works as a transitive verb, so there is always someone on the receiving end. The commonest pattern is tricks someone into doing something. A separate sense of dressing or adorning travels with a particle: she tricks herself up for the party, he tricks out the room with ribbons. For telling it apart from its identical twin, see the plural noun.

   Every December she tricks out the shop window with tinsel and paper stars.

   He tricks himself up in a borrowed velvet jacket for the gala.

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