Magic Palm Palmer Pilgrim  Michael Pah Muhr Noun Itinerant

palmer /PAH-muhr/

noun

1. A pilgrim.

2. An itinerant monk.

3. One who conceals a card or another object in a magic trick or in cheating in a game.

[From Latin palma (palm tree, palm of the hand). The name of the palm tree derives from the resemblance of the shape of its frond to the palm of a hand. In Medieval Europe, a pilgrim brought back a palm branch as a token of his pilgrimage. Earliest documented use: 1300. Also see palmy & palmary.]

"For the profane palmer the tour might indeed have been little more than a grand debauch, but for a devoted pilgrim like Jefferson it was something more." - Michael Knox Beran; Jefferson's Demons; Free Press; 2003.

"That was magic -- not the apparent magic of the silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art." - Michael Chabon; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Random House; 2000.