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A word written repeatedly with one letter dropped each line, forming a triangle.
Also known as: Abracadabra charm, Diminishing charm
ABRACADABRA written on the top line, then a letter shorter each line down to a single A — a diminishing triangle. Prescribed by the Roman physician Serenus Sammonicus in the third century as an amulet against fever, on the reasoning that the illness would dwindle as the word did.
A charm in which a word is written on successive lines, each one letter shorter than the last, so the text forms a downward-pointing triangle ending in a single letter.
Prescribed in the third century by Quintus Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the emperor Caracalla, as an amulet worn against fever — the earliest surviving record of the formula.
3rd century CE
The diminishing shape is the operative part: the affliction was held to shrink as the word did, an example of sympathetic reasoning that recurs widely in charm literature.
The word survives in modern English as a stage-magician's incantation, entirely detached from its medical and amuletic history.
Lines of capital letters stacked to form a downward-pointing triangle, the top line longest and each line below one letter shorter, ending in a single letter.