hocus

To play a trick on, to trick (someone); to hoax; to cheat.

1677, Poor Robin’s Visions, London: Arthur Boldero, Eighth Vision, p. 117, […] to contemplate the miseries of a poor Poetick life, or study some well laid plot to Hocus his Landlady into a further credence or belief […]

HOCUS. To cheat. Hence the more modern term hoax.

To stupefy (someone) with drugged liquor (especially in order to steal from them).

[…] but him they intended to disable by a trick then newly introduced amongst robbers, and termed hocussing, i. e., clandestinely drugging the liquor of the victim with laudanum […]

The last of the criminal cases are the thieves, who admit of being classified as follows: […] (2.) Those who hocus or plunder persons by stupefying […]

To drug (liquor).

[…] I think the wine of them two Governors was—I will not say a hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was elthy for the mind.

[He] served them out three fingers of rum apiece, which the bo’sun took upon himself to hocus. By latest accounts, they’re sleeping it off […]

To adulterate (food).

I had a healthy appetite, but the tradition was that all the food was unutterably bad, adulterated, hocussed.

“Those rotten Huns have been hocussing our grub.”

A magician, illusionist, one who practises sleight of hand.

Certainly he was the bravest Ambodexter of his time, and this blinded age, or that ever was among us dull Northern people; and among the multitude of his Tricks, I shall commend to the Hocusses of Bartholomew Fair, for their information and edification, this Legerdemain (for it is supposed it will hardly be practicable any more in the Pulpit;)

I called freely for what was in the house, which was readily brought me; but when the servants beheld with what cele[r]ity, (Hocus like) and cleanly conveyance, I had disposed of what was before me, they verily believed in one week, I would cause a dearth in the house […]

One who cheats or deceives.

1685, Robert South, “A Sermon Preached at Christ-Church, Oxon, Before the University, May 3. 1685” in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, London: Thomas Bennett, 1692, p. 523, […] when thy Brother has lost all that ever he had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think thus to lick him whole again, only with thy Tongue? just like that old formal Hocus, who denyed a Beggar a farthing, and put him off with his Blessing.

I have the Originals at This Present in my Hand, and there is the Paw of Tong and Otes so manifestly in the very Writing of them; as if they had not thought it worth the while to Disguise the Cheat. It was an Imposture, that their very Souls, Heads, Hearts, and Hands were All at Work upon; And the Forgery Vndeniable; only Tong Himself was the Master-Hocus.

Trick; trickery.

As in almost every Chapter of his Book, so in this Seventh, he has a new Hocus to carry on his old design […]

The Jugler and the Judge, too, may complain, For both now strive to cheat the World in vain; In slight and shift and Trick they both agree, But a quick Eye may all their Hocus see:

Drugged liquor.