magic 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.