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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

one weird trick en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

One of various collocations that were found empirically in A-B testing to have high clickbait effectiveness, at least at the time when they were not yet hackneyed. The choice of words was driven by their clickbaiting power.

Meanings

  1. (informal) A supposed unusual and little-known solution to a problem, offered in deceptive and misleading advertising on the Internet.
    • The text itself read only slightly less formally and considerably more like a legitimate online resource than what Helen had expected: either a string of gibberish or else something comparable to the meaningless hyperbole of online ads promising to reveal one weird trick to weight loss, sexual stamina, or immense riches. 2015, Gin Jones, A Draw of Death: Helen Binney Mysteries book #3:
    • The same questions over and over, as if somehow this time I would give them a different answer, something easy that would solve everything. One Weird Trick to Cure Autism! 2016, Jennifer Noonan, No Map to This Country: One Family's Journey through Autism:
    • The phonestack game isn't a “life hack” or a “brain hack” or a clickbaity “this one weird trick” or a clinically or even anecdotally psychologically effective mechanism for exercising willpower—it's just another thing you can do with your phones at dinner. 2016, Ian Bogost, Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games:

Hypernyms

trick

Relateds

lifehack · parlour trick · party trick · cheap trick · cheat code