That phrase "hocus-pocus" started out as "hocus-pocus dominocus", and was, in the beginning, a mocking imitation of the holy incantations of the Catholic Church's Latin liturgy. So say the lexicologists.
I once heard someone say that success is not hocus pocus but focus focus.
Success isn't magic or hocus-pocus - it's simply learning how to focus.
Will I, succeed, paranoid from the weed and hocus pocus, try to focus but I can't see.
Hocus was an old cunning attorney. The words of consecration, "Hoc est corpus," were travestied into a nickname for jugglery, as "Hocus-pocus."
Hocus was an old cunning attorney. The words of consecration, "Hoc est corpus," were travestied into a nickname for jugglery, as "Hocus-pocus." - John Richard Green, A Short History of the English People, 1874. see Charles Macklin.
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science.
Expose foes wit my hocus pocus flows, they froze now suckas idolize my chosen blows
If men saw that a term was set to their troubles, they would find strength in some way to withstand the hocus-pocus and intimidations of the prophets.
Scary movies are my favorite. My kids love Hocus Pocus. I'm a big fan of Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp and Freddy Krueger.
There’s always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done; that this is a craft that cannot be learned.
'Hocus Pocus' has a great following and was a great part of when I was a kid.
The curious hocus-pocus of criticism I can't take seriously. It consists in squirreling up some odd phrases and then waiting for a book to come running by.
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science that smiles in your face while it picks your pocket.
The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.
There's so much hocus-pocus about acting styles; there's too much mysticism attached to it. But it's a craft like any other - it's something you have to work hard at.