Cantrip

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cantrip may refer to—

  • A magical spell of any kind, or one which reads the same forwards and backwards.

In the novel, "When Darkness Falls," by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory, a 'cantrip' is used to describe a short (one or two words, or one flick of a magic wand) spell or incantation that triggers a series of spells, or acts as a trigger that completes a much more complicated spell (which would ordinarily take hours or days of chanting and conjuring to complete). It acts as a magical shortcut or abbreviation.