1. adj. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to
explain; compare automagically and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third
Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic." "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of
magic bits." "This routine magically computes the parity of an
8-bit byte in three instructions." 2. adj. Characteristic of
something that works although no one really understands why (this
is especially called black magic). 3. n. [Stanford] 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
