Meanings
- informalA supposed unusual and little-known solution to a problem, offered in deceptive and misleading advertising on the Internet.
The same questions over and over, as if somehow this time I would give them a different answer, something easy that would solve everything. One Weird Trick to Cure Autism!
2016, Jennifer Noonan, No Map to This Country: One Family's Journey through Autism2 more examples
The text itself read only slightly less formally and considerably more like a legitimate online resource than what Helen had expected: either a string of gibberish or else something comparable to the meaningless hyperbole of online ads promising to reveal one weird trick to weight loss, sexual stamina, or immense riches.
2015, Gin Jones, A Draw of Death: Helen Binney Mysteries book #3The phonestack game isn't a “life hack” or a “brain hack” or a clickbaity “this one weird trick” or a clinically or even anecdotally psychologically effective mechanism for exercising willpower—it's just another thing you can do with your phones at dinner.
2016, Ian Bogost, Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games
Origin
One of various collocations that were found empirically in A-B testing to have high clickbait effectiveness, at least at the time when they were not yet hackneyed. The choice of words was driven by their clickbaiting power.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
one weird trick. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one%20weird%20trick
“one weird trick.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one%20weird%20trick. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “one weird trick,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one%20weird%20trick.
Source: one weird trick on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.