/ˈkɒndʒər/
[verb] To make something appear as if by magic, or to bring a picture or idea clearly into your mind. It can also mean to perform magic tricks or to call upon a spirit using special words or rituals.
At its heart, 'conjure' means to swear together — its magic came later, borrowed from the rituals of binding oaths.
The story of 'conjure' begins in ancient Rome with a simple but powerful idea: swearing together. The Latin verb 'conjurare' was built from two parts — the prefix 'con-', meaning 'together' or 'with', and 'jurare', meaning 'to swear an oath'. So at its most basic, 'conjurare' described a group of people swearing the same oath at the same time, binding themselves to a shared cause. From this root, Latin also gave us 'conjuratio', meaning a conspiracy or a plot — a group of people secretly sworn together against someone else.
The word passed into Old French as 'conjurer', carrying both senses: to swear together and, increasingly, to call upon higher powers through solemn words. This second meaning grew naturally from the first. If an oath could bind people to each other, why couldn't the right words — spoken with enough solemnity and force — bind a spirit or a supernatural force to the speaker's will? Medieval Christians believed that demons and angels could be commanded through sacred formulas, and the word 'conjurer' in Old French came to describe someone who performed exactly these kinds of rituals.
English picked up 'conjure' in the 13th century, directly from Old French 'conjurer', and the word arrived already carrying this double life. In early English use, it could mean to solemnly appeal to someone — almost like a legal or moral command — or it could mean to summon spirits through magic words. Both senses appear in medieval texts, and both were considered perfectly serious. The idea of 'conjuring' a spirit was not theatrical; it was treated as a real and dangerous practice, something done by learned men who knew the right formulas.
Over time, as the Age of Enlightenment changed how educated people thought about magic and the supernatural, the word began to drift. What had once been a genuine belief became entertainment. By the 18th and 19th centuries, 'conjurers' were stage performers — clever tricksters pulling rabbits from hats — and 'conjuring' had become synonymous with illusion and sleight of hand. The word had travelled from the Roman courtroom to the medieval ritual circle to the Victorian music hall.
Today, 'conjure' carries the best of all its old meanings at once. We say a writer 'conjures' a vivid scene, a smell 'conjures up' a childhood memory, or a musician 'conjures' emotion from thin air. This modern, metaphorical use is perhaps the richest of all — it captures the sense that some creative acts feel genuinely magical, as though something real has been called into existence from nothing. The ghost of that original Latin oath still haunts every use of the word: to conjure is always, in some small way, to swear something into being.