What's the difference between sleight and speight?
Sleight
Definition:
(n.) Cunning; craft; artful practice.
(n.) An artful trick; sly artifice; a feat so dexterous that the manner of performance escapes observation.
(n.) Dexterous practice; dexterity; skill.
Example Sentences:
(1) Although it's presented as a boys' story, rooted in historical reality, it also demonstrates Stevenson's artistic sleight-of-hand.
(2) No, not Gordon Brown, although there were times when today's sleights of hand and burying of bad news had strong echoes of the clunking fist at its worst.
(3) Bewley lifts the lid on a world of sleight of hand, massage and plain lying by omission in the world of fertility statistics.
(4) This sort of sleight of hand is what we lawyers call " sharp practice ".
(5) Infantile delivery also frequently serves to take the curse off self-publicity; sleight of hand for those who find "my programme is on BBC2 tonight" too presumptuous and exposing, and prefer to cower behind the low-status imbecility of "I done rote a fingy for da tellybox!"
(6) A fluorescent analog of phosphatidylethanolamine [palmitoyl-C6-NBD)-PE), which also exhibits transmembrane movement at the plasma membrane at 7 degrees C (Sleight, R. G., and Pagano, R. E. (1985) J. Biol.
(7) At times it has obfuscated its message on the bailout but Syriza's most impressive sleight of hand has been its attempt to appeal to incompatible constituencies.
(8) The tone is set once the charlady answers the telephone with the words: “Hello, the drawing room of Lady Muldoon’s country residence one morning in early spring.” The critics first comment on the action from the stalls and then, by a Pirandellian sleight of hand, become a part of it.
(9) He predicted: "There is a real, real danger that the Liberal Democrats could implode – their role has been a sleight of hand."
(10) The Institute for Fiscal Studies played a blinder, as usual, pointing out the Treasury's sleights of hand and misrepresentations.
(11) Instead, as we have reported, HMRC is using sleight of hand to release information about VAT to credit reference agencies who have been disguised as contractors to avoid confidentiality law.
(12) In England, unless championed by Labour, they can just as easily be harnessed by Ukip – or used to justify a Tory constitutional sleight of hand that could derail a Labour government and leave Liverpool and Newcastle at the mercy of a Farageist southern suburbia.
(13) Had the Elysée's salles des fêtes been packed to the ornate rafters and chandeliers with French media, the sleight of hand might have worked.
(14) Green campaigners believe the Lib Dems have been persuaded into allowing higher energy bills to flow into increased profits for nuclear companies by a sleight of hand that lets ministers disguise nuclear subsidies as support for "low-carbon power".
(15) Osborne's budget was a lesson in sleight of hand Read more The moment was ripe for someone – perhaps a child, as in the fable – to stand up and point out that the emperors of the Treasury and the OBR have no clothes; that all these predictions, while not exactly worthless, can’t be relied on to last five weeks let alone five years.
(16) Another tweeted that BGT’s producers should have informed viewers about the sleight of hand before the public decided who to vote for in the final.
(17) Thailand’s friends abroad should not be fooled by this obvious sleight of hand … that effectively provides unlimited and unaccountable powers.” In particular, unlawful detentions of civilian opponents looked set to increase, he suggested .
(18) Scrutiny of the documents suggests it is based on three key assumptions – and one sleight of hand.
(19) Chinese hamster ovary cells maintained in culture medium supplemented with complete serum can grow at nearly normal rates in the presence of phospholipase C for many generations, even though the treatment enhances turnover of cellular phosphatidylcholine (R. Sleight and C. Kent (1983) J. Biol.
(20) "Britain's young people who do not have the skills they need for work should be in training, not on benefits," said Miliband, in a neat bit of sleight of hand that lays the lack of employment in this age group firmly at their own door.
Speight
Definition:
(n.) A woodpecker; -- called also specht, spekt, spight.
Example Sentences:
(1) Previous studies conducted in the nominal absence of exogenous CO2 and HCO3- suggested that the acidification was due to a proton-secretory rather than bicarbonate-reabsorptive mechanism (Thomson, R.B., Speight, J.D., Phillips, J.E.
(2) "The growing tally of 17,700 job losses since the formation of the bank is disgraceful," Speight said.
(3) Cath Speight, Unite national officer, described the cuts as "extremely alarming".
(4) There is widespread expectation that the commission's members, who include the Liberal Democrat Lord Lester, Labour's Lady Kennedy and the Conservative Anthony Speight QC, will fail to reach a consensus and end up in political stalemate, unable to agree on a common set of recommendations.
(5) The sentiment was echoed by Unite, whose national officer, Cath Speight, said: "It is an absolute disgrace that Lloyds Banking Group which is being kept alive by the taxpayer is cutting more jobs and moving their jobs out of the UK.