Sleight means skilful, quick trickery, and it appears mostly in the phrase sleight of hand. Slight means small or minor, slender, or to treat someone with disrespect. If a magician is involved, it is sleight; if something is small, it is slight.
The core difference
Sleight is deft trickery, while slight means small, slender, or a snub.
- sleight — skilful trickery, especially with the hands: The magician's sleight of hand fooled the audience.
- slight — small or slender; also to snub: There was only a slight chance of rain.
How to tell them apart
For a memory hook, picture a magician: sleight is the trickery, and it is the longer word with the extra e, just as a trick takes extra effort. Slight is the everyday word for anything small, and it is the one you will use far more often.
The mix-up almost always happens in the phrase sleight of hand, which is sometimes wrongly written slight of hand. Since the phrase is about trickery rather than smallness, the correct spelling has the e.
