magic
1. adj. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain;
compare automagically and
(Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." "TTY echoing is
controlled by a large number of magic bits." "This routine
magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte in three
instructions." 2. adj. Characteristic of something that works
although no one really understands why (this is especially called
black magic). 3. n.
[Stanford] A feature not generally publicized that allows
something otherwise impossible, or a feature formerly in that
category but now unveiled. 4. n. The ultimate goal of all
engineering & development, elegance in the extreme; from the
first corollary to Clarke's Third Law: "Any technology
distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced".
Parodies playing on these senses of the term abound; some have
made their way into serious documentation, as when a MAGIC
directive was described in the Control Card Reference for GCOS
c.1978. For more about hackish `magic', see Appendix A. Compare black magic, wizardly, deep
magic, heavy
wizardry.