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automagically /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ adv.
Automatically, but
in a way that, for some reason (typically because it is too
complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker
doesn't feel like explaining to you. See magic. "The
C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes
cc(1) to produce an executable."
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in
jargon and probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in
advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late
1940s.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
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