abracadabra [L17th] These days abracadabra is just a fun word said by magicians as they do a trick, but formerly it was much more serious—a magic word that was supposed to be a charm against fever and was often engraved on an amulet worn around the neck. Abracadabra was written so that it formed a triangle, beginning with ‘A’ on the first line, ‘AB’ on the second, and so on. It ultimately goes back to ancient times, first recorded in a Latin poem of the 2nd century ad. There have been many suggestions of where the word comes from, but no one really knows.