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 after some abracadabra the spiritualist announced that we had made contact with “the other side”
Recent Examples on the WebAnd there’s an abracadabra quality of pulling a bed out nowhere. Christine Lennon, Sunset Magazine, 11 Feb. 2022 The smoke from Luka Doncic’s latest abracadabra moment still hangs in the air, along with our collective state of disbelief.Dallas News, 15 Apr. 2021 When someone pushed the button — abracadabra — the bus went from Boston to New York, just like that. James Barron, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2019 And that the shareholders will then subsequently spend that money buying things—a new car, a new refrigerator, perhaps—and abracadabra, the economy will be set on fire for the first time in more than a decade. William D. Cohan, The Hive, 13 Dec. 2017 Take Loren Brichter, the designer who created pull-to-refresh (the downward abracadabra swipe that prompts new app content to load). Catherine Cusick, Longreads, 11 Oct. 2017