incantation

• encantation

From Old French incantation, from Latin incantatio. More at enchant.

• IPA^(key): /inkænˈteɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

incantation (plural incantations)

1. The act or process of using formulas and/or usually rhyming words, sung or spoken, with occult ceremonies, for the purpose of raising spirits, producing enchantment, or creating other magical results.
   • 2008, “Red Letter Year”, in Red Letter Year‎, performed by Ani Difranco:

     new years eve we dropped mushrooms / and danced around the house / making music with everything that we found / incantation replaced resolution

2. A formula of words used as above.
3. (computing, slang) Any esoteric command or procedure.
   • 1998, John Purcell, ‎Robert Kiesling, Linux: The Complete Reference: Book 1 (page 412)

     The appropriate incantation of route is shown below; the gw keyword tells it that the next argument denotes a gateway.

   • 2005, Kyle Rankin, Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video

     There's more than one command incantation to create an AVI. It's all a question of experimenting with the different audio and video codecs.

   • 2017, James Pogran, Learning PowerShell DSC (page 11)

     Servers move from being special snowflakes to being disposable numbers on a list that can be created and destroyed without requiring someone to remember the specific incantation to make it work.

• incant
• incantatory
• incanter

Borrowed from Late Latin incantātiō. Synchronically analysable as incanter +‎ -ation.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.kɑ̃.ta.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

incantation f (plural incantations)

1. incantation

• enchanter

• “incantation” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).