sleight-of-hand

Artful misdirection of attention while performing some manual action, to conceal one's technique while ostensibly concealing nothing. Used by magicians, pickpockets, actors, snake-oil salesmen.

A big part of a lot of sleight of hand tricks (i.e. coin, ball, and sponge tricks) is the ability to hold something in your hand without anybody seeing it or knowing that it's there. The trick is that people believe, I don't know why, but it's ingrained in us, that you have to use your whole hand to hold something. Once this initial misdirection is achieved, all manner of effects with any object smaller than your own hands may be accomplished. Fooling the eyes is easier than it should be. I know a couple of coin tricks, and I don't think that I'm incredibly bad with them, but... in the mirror, sometimes I notice that I didn't even see where the Sacajawea dollar went to.

Big, glitzy stage shows are fantastic to watch, that's for sure, but little tricks with the hands, that fool your eyes every time you see them... Those just make me feel like I'm 8 years old. It's crazy.

Spuunbenda is a bit closer to the mark. Sleight of hand can perhaps be best defined as “a manual execution with the intent of secretly achieving an end unbeknownst to any observers.”

Sleight of hand, then, is not merely confined to secretly holding an object. Sleight of hand is also used to

• Reveal an object in a surprising way
• Secretly move an object from one location to another
• Secretly steal an object away from a known location
• Secretly place an object into a specific location
• Secretly switch two objects
• Secretly re-orient an object (such as turning over a coin)
• Cause an object to transform in some manner
• Cause an object to penetrate another object in some manner
• Cause an object to defy gravity in some manner or another
• Cause an object to animate in some manner or another
• Cause a damaged object to be restored

Also, sleight of hand need not use objects at all, as some strong magical effects can be achieved with the hands themselves, such as the elongation, shrinking, or separation of the fingers. One well-known magician made his early reputation by causing each of his fingers to disappear from his hand one at a time.

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As grammatical information, “sleight of hand” is not normally hyphenated, except when used as an adjective, as in “He is a sleight-of-hand expert.”