tricks of the trade

[George Thompson]

The OED doesn't have an entry for this expression, but it appears in a quotation from Thomas Carlyle from 1829 (as "trick", under sub-division 1 of "knack" #2), and in quotations from 1861 (under "make" as a verb, #1, the expression "make up") and 1988 (under metal).

Here it is from 1843:
This is as action exhibiting emphatically some of the "tricks of the trade."
There follows a long account of a lawsuit.  If any of our lexicographers think it would be useful to know the details of the suit, the trick and the trade in question, I will summarize it, upon request.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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