bonus genius
nounEtymology Learned borrowing from Latin bonus genius (literally “good spirit”).
1
A small wooden doll that is covered with a cape and made to vanish as part of a magic trick.
- I'd pull out my cards and card-boxes, and the bonus genius or the wooden doll, and then I'd spread a nice clean cloth (which I always carried with me) on the table, and then I'd go to work.1967, Henry Mayhew, London labour and the London poor:
- The trick of the little figure that vanishes, the Bonus Genius, as it was called, can be traced back to the seventeenth century, when this trick was recorded in one of the earliest magic books […]1979, Charles J. Pecor, The craft of magic: easy-to-learn illusions for spectacular performances:
2
Obsolete A benevolent spirit or angel, seen as influencing a person's decisions in a beneficial way.
- I dailie and hourelie offend in thought, word, and deed, in a relapſe by mine owne weakneſſe and wilfulneſſe, my bonus Genius, my good protecting angel is gone, I am falne from that I was, or would bee, worſe and worſe, […]1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Cure of Deſpaire by Phyſick, good counſell, comforts, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 4, member 3, subsection 6, page 707: