1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xiii., p. 104. ‘What do you mean by
hocussing brandy and water?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. ‘Puttin’
laund’num in it,’ replied Sam.
1836. Comic Almanack, p. 1. For that we hocuss’d first his drink.
1848. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, II., ch. xxix. Mr. Frederick Pigeon
avers that it was at her house at Lausanne that he was hocussed at
supper and lost eight hundred pounds to Major Loder and the
Honourable Mr. Deucease.
1854. De Quincey, Murder as one of the Fine Arts, Wks., xiii., 119.
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.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Hocus ... ‘Hocus the bloke’s lush,
and then frisk his sacks,’ put something into the fellow’s drink
that will stupify him, and then search his pockets.
1859. The Bulletin, 21 May. An offence which goes by the name of
hocussing, and which consists of an evil doer furtively introducing
laudanum or some other narcotic into beer or spirits, which the
victim drinks and, becoming stupified thereby, is then easily
robbed.
1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. II., ch. xii. I will not say
a hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was ’elthy for the mind.
Hocus-pocus, subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A juggler’s phrase. Hence
a juggler’s (or impostor’s) stock in trade. Also Hocus-trade.
1639–61. Rump Songs. ‘Vanity of Vanities.’ A hocus-pocus, juggling
Knight.
1639–61. Rump Songs, ii., 156. ‘The Rump Ululant.’ Religion we made
free of hocus trade.
1646. Randolph, Jealous Lovers, If I do not think women were got
with riddling, whip me! Hocas Pocas, here you shall have me, and
there you shall have me.
1654. Gayton, Test. Notes Don. Quix., 46. This old fellow had not
the Hocas Pocas of Astrology.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, iii., 2. That burlesque is a
hocus-pocus trick they have got.
d. 1680. Butler, Remains (1759), ii., 122. With a little heaving
and straining, would turn it into Latin, as Mille hoco-pokiana, and
a thousand such.
1689. Marvell, Historical Poem, line 90. With hocus-pocus.... They
gain on tender consciences at night.
c. 1755. Adey, Candle in the Dark, p. 29. At the playing of every
trick he used to say, hocus-pocus, tontus, talontus, vade celeriter
jubeo.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1824–28. Landor, Imaginary Conversations [2nd Ed., ii., 275].
Torke. What think you, for instance, of Hocus! Pocus! Johnson. Sir,
those are exclamations of conjurors, as they call themselves.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 26 Mar., p. 5, c. 3. The lock of hair, the
dragon’s blood, and the stolen flour were only the hocus-pocus of
her sham witchcraft like the transfixed waxen puppets of the
sorcerers of the past.