These magic words were made popular by the famous professional magician Harry August Jansen (1883–1955), also known as The Great Jansen or Dante, who used sim sala bim as the name of his touring magic show.
For instance, you might say an MBA is the open sesame to landing a competitive job in finance.
Perhaps one of the greatest magical commands to survive from folklore, open sesame today may be used as a noun to refer to a very successful means of achieving a result. These are the magic words Ali Baba speaks to open the door of the den of the 40 thieves. open sesameįirst recorded in English in the late 1700s, open sesame comes from Antoine Galland’s translation of One Thousand and One Nights. Combined from the French words voi (“see”) and là (“there”), voilà is used to direct attention during performance magic. She’ll flourish a sheet over a table and voilà, where there was no one a second ago, her whole assistant will appear!įirst recorded in English between 1825–35, voilà is used as an expression of success or satisfaction, typically to give the impression that the achievement happened quickly or easily.
Maybe you’ve seen a magician conclude an amazing feat with this little phrase. For instance, one who is dismissive of fortunetelling might call the act of reading tarot cards “a bunch of hocus pocus.”įirst recorded in the 1660s, hocus pocus is likely a corruption of the Latin phrase used in Catholic mass, Hoc est corpus meum (“here is my body”).ĭiscover more about hocus-pocus and other bewitching words here. Immortalized in a ’90s cult classic family film, hocus pocus may be both invoked as an incantation and might also be used to refer to an act of trickery. While the poem uses alakazam in the context of entertainment and as an excited expression (“We’re goin’ to de cirkis! / Alakazam!”) there is oddly no connection to magic. One of the earliest printings of alakazam in an English text is the poem “Among the White Tents,” first published in the Chicago Herald Tribune in 1888. While the origins of the word are unknown, according to Magic Words: A Dictionary, alakazam may have ties to a similar-sounding Arabic phrase, Al Qasam, which means “oath.” Therefore, a conjuror invoking alakazam may be calling back to a promise made by a superior being to help complete the miraculous feat they are presenting. Often used as the finale word in the presentation of a grand stage illusion, alakazam is intoned as a powerful command. Recorded in English in the late 1600s, abracadabra is used in incantations, particularly as a magical means of warding off misfortune, harm, or illness, and for some, is used as a nonsense word, implying gibberish in place of supposedly magical words. The idea behind reductive spells is that by making the word shorter so would a pain or illness gradually diminish. Abracadabra is classified as a reductive spell, which means it would have been written out as a complete word on the first line, then with one letter missing on the next, then another letter removed on the following line, and so forth. Its origins are contested as scholars posit that abracadabra emerged from Late Latin or Late Greek, reflecting the recitation of the initial letters of the alphabet ( abecedary) others hypothesize that it could related to the Hebrew Ha brakha dabra, which translates as, “The blessing has spoken.” We do understand it as a word generally meant to invoke magical power. Perhaps one of the oldest and most recognized magical phrases, abracadabra has been around since the second century BCE and has famously appeared in the Harry Potter series. When you’re ready, you can demonstrate your knowledge of magic words by taking this short quiz! abracadabra If you’re a real “wiz” at card tricks or have a deeper fascination with charms and spells, you might already know the words on this list.
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