Thaumaturgy
noun /ˈθɔːmətɜːrdʒi/ — The working of miracles — magic that astonishes.
Definition
The working of wonders or miracles; magic; the supposed working of miracles, especially by a saint.
Beyond the definition
Thaumaturgy names miracle-working as a craft — the implication being that wonders have a method, even if that method is divine. Saints were called thaumaturges. So, informally, are the tech founders, stage magicians, and master chefs who produce results that seem impossible. The word gives a name to the human experience of witnessing something that shouldn't work — and watching it work.
Origin & history
From Greek thauma 'wonder, miracle' + ergon 'work'. The same root gives us 'theatre' (theatron, a place for seeing wonders) and 'theory' (theoria, a looking at).
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
The performance was a kind of thaumaturgy — you knew the trick had a mechanism and felt the wonder anyway.
Medieval saints' lives are full of thaumaturgy: the blind made to see, the storm stilled, the dead raised.
She had a gift for financial thaumaturgy — the quarterly numbers always came out better than they should.
Synonyms
miracle-working, magic, wizardry, wonder-working
Antonyms
ordinariness, mechanism, science
Related words
Word in the Wild
See how this word appears in life, language and stories.
Illustrative sentences and imagined stories for learning — not verified sightings, interviews, or sourced quotations.
Fictional scene
Impossibly Floating Flower Over Bowl
A figure in a simple robe raises a hand over a bowl, causing a small flower to hover in midair.
This fictional, storybook illustration serves as a clear metaphor for the miraculous. By showing an impossible act occurring in a ritual space, it depicts the concept of wonder-working while emphasizing its purely fantastical status rather than a claim to reality.
Image credit: Wordspun · AI-generated conceptual illustration