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}.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {automagically}{cookbook}{dongle}{hex}{rain dance}{SCSI voodoo}{voodoo programming}{wizard}{xyzzy}{You are not expected to understand this}]