sleight

From Middle English sleighte, sleyght, sleythe, from Old Norse slœgð (“cunning”), from Proto-Germanic *slōgiþō, from *slōgiz (“cunning”) (whence English sly). Doublet of slöjd/sloyd.

• IPA^(key): /slaɪt/
• Rhymes: -aɪt
• Homophone: slight

sleight (countable and uncountable, plural sleights)

1. Cunning; craft; artful practice.
2. (countable) An artful trick; sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation.
   • 1866, Henry Smith, Thomas Fuller, The Sermons of Mr. Henry Smith, page 37:

     If men have so many sleights to compass their matters, how can the compasser himself hold his fingers?

3. Dexterous practice; dexterity; skill.

• sleight of hand
• sleightly
• sleighty

• Leights

sleight

1. Alternative form of sleighte

sleight

1. Alternative form of slight

From Middle English slight, from Old English sliht.

sleight

1. slight

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 68