noun cocaine, heroine, morphine or opium; also marijuana. Best remembered as a stage magician's incantation, but claimed to be a mocking corruption of hoc est corpus (this is the body); originally, 1650–1720, 'a juggler/a conjuror'; it was in circulation during C19 and into C20 in the sense of 'criminal deception/shady trickery'; in 1821 as 'to stupefy with alcohol' (for the purposes of robbery) and hence 'hocus' became 'a drugged liquor' from as early as 1725 and well into C19 served as an adjective meaning 'intoxicated'. All these meanings condensed into a catalogue of hard drugs during C20; 'marijuana' joined the list in the 1980s UK, 1938