1
as in spell
a spoken word or set of words believed to have magic power
originally, an abracadabra was a cryptogram of the word "abracadabra" that was repeated in diminishing form until it disappeared entirely—supposedly just like the targeted evil or misfortune
Synonyms & Similar Words
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2
as in nonsense
unintelligible or meaningless talk
after some abracadabra the spiritualist announced that we had made contact with "the other side"
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of abracadabra
What could be more fun than some abracadabra and cathartic wealth redistribution?
—
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2025
There is nothing to choose between them, but there was a consistency, clinical edge and an abracadabra touch that made this performance the best Alcaraz has played in a major final, barring that 2024 demolition of Novak Djokovic on Centre Court.
—Tim Ellis, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
That’s seven steps to make abracadabra, whose molecular assembly number is thus seven.
—Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 13 Jan. 2023
Make the Boston Celtics vanish on abracadabra?
—Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY, 18 May 2022
And there’s an abracadabra quality of pulling a bed out nowhere.
—Christine Lennon, Sunset Magazine, 11 Feb. 2022
But Trump’s Hollywood gambits well surpass that obvious bit of abracadabra.
—Steven Zeitchik, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
His utilization of terms like irreducible complexity is about as substantive as chanting abracadabra, but probably just as effective in convincing fellow travelers already sympathetic to his position as shamans were in the days of yore.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 5 Sep. 2011
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2025
There is nothing to choose between them, but there was a consistency, clinical edge and an abracadabra touch that made this performance the best Alcaraz has played in a major final, barring that 2024 demolition of Novak Djokovic on Centre Court.
—Tim Ellis, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
That’s seven steps to make abracadabra, whose molecular assembly number is thus seven.
—Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 13 Jan. 2023
Make the Boston Celtics vanish on abracadabra?
—Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY, 18 May 2022
And there’s an abracadabra quality of pulling a bed out nowhere.
—Christine Lennon, Sunset Magazine, 11 Feb. 2022
But Trump’s Hollywood gambits well surpass that obvious bit of abracadabra.
—Steven Zeitchik, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
His utilization of terms like irreducible complexity is about as substantive as chanting abracadabra, but probably just as effective in convincing fellow travelers already sympathetic to his position as shamans were in the days of yore.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 5 Sep. 2011
Recent Examples of Synonyms for abracadabra
Noun
-
Earlier in the day, Council members grilled administration officials over their outreach to homeless New Yorkers during the cold spell.—
Josephine Stratman,
New York Daily News,
11 Feb. 2026
-
Early warm spells can encourage spring-flowering bulbs to emerge before the risk of cold damage has passed.—
Lauren Landers,
Better Homes & Gardens,
11 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
Hillary Busis considers this celestial nonsense.—
Hillary Busis,
Vanity Fair,
13 Feb. 2026
-
And someone please tell the FBI and the DOJ to get to work on real crime, rather than the political nonsense.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
9 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
The latest incantation of NVLink provides a scale-up fabric at 3.6 TB/s per GPU, supporting all-to-all collectives in network.—
Karl Freund,
Forbes.com,
7 Jan. 2026
-
Fireflies blipped and burned out, and the cicadas joined in an incantation that crescendoed into an ancient whirr.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
15 Dec. 2025
Noun
-
Read a book and sip tea in front of the central fireplace, swim between the indoor and outdoor sections of the glimmering pool, and soak your aching quads in the hot tubs under the evergreens and aspens while listening to the peaceful babble of Gore Creek.—
Sarah Kuta,
Condé Nast Traveler,
6 Feb. 2026
-
Now the babble about them is back.—
DP Opinion,
Denver Post,
19 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
The bizarre reality of daily life in a Southeast Asian scam compound—the tactics, the tone, the mix of cruelty and upbeat corporate prattle—is revealed at an unprecedented level of resolution in a leak of documents to WIRED from a whistleblower inside one such sprawling fraud operation.—
Andy Greenberg,
Wired News,
27 Jan. 2026
-
Trump prattles on about the economy while the actors freeze behind him in their ancient Galilee garb.—
Rosa Escandon,
Forbes.com,
13 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
With its tongue way up its cheek, this zero-fat survival thriller is not bulked up with gratuitous sociological mumbo jumbo or layered with hidden meanings.—
Duane Byrge,
HollywoodReporter,
13 Nov. 2025
-
Gavras presents this mystic mumbo jumbo in such a way that we are meant to question whether Joan could be right.—
Peter Debruge,
Variety,
14 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Some children clustered there to jabber and run madly about, while others just wanted attention and knew how to get it.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
20 Oct. 2025
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And given that these are not professional actors, or even (in most cases) people who aspire to be, LaBeouf’s words to them, full of deadly serious jabber about empathy and ego, are pumped up with an intensity that feels overdone and inappropriate.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
19 May 2025
Noun
-
Imagine designing a system that conforms to that gibberish, or the ensuing court battles.—
The Editorial Board,
Oc Register,
25 Jan. 2026
-
In Anthropic’s experiments, as few as 250 malicious documents were enough to induce AI models to output gibberish.—
Craig S. Smith,
Forbes.com,
21 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Abracadabra.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/abracadabra. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.
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