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Cunning   /kˈənɪŋ/   Listen
adjective
Cunning  adj.  
1.
Knowing; skillful; dexterous. "A cunning workman." ""Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on." "Esau was a cunning hunter."
2.
Wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious; curious; as, cunning work. "Over them Arachne high did lift" "Her cunning web."
3.
Crafty; sly; artful; designing; deceitful. "They are resolved to be cunning; let others run the hazard of being sincere."
4.
Pretty or pleasing; as, a cunning little boy. (Colloq. U.S.)
Synonyms: Cunning, Artful, Sly, Wily, Crafty. These epithets agree in expressing an aptitude for attaining some end by peculiar and secret means. Cunning is usually low; as, a cunning trick. Artful is more ingenious and inventive; as, an artful device. Sly implies a turn for what is double or concealed; as, sly humor; a sly evasion. Crafty denotes a talent for dexterously deceiving; as, a crafty manager. Wily describes a talent for the use of stratagems; as, a wily politician. A cunning man often shows his dexterity in simply concealing. An artful man goes further, and exerts his ingenuity in misleading. A crafty man mingles cunning with art, and so shapes his actions as to lull suspicions. The young may be cunning, but the experienced only can be crafty. Slyness is a vulgar kind of cunning; the sly man goes cautiously and silently to work. Wiliness is a species of cunning or craft applicable only to cases of attack and defense."


noun
Cunning  n.  
1.
Knowledge; art; skill; dexterity. (Archaic) "Let my right hand forget her cunning." "A carpenter's desert Stands more in cunning than in power."
2.
The faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft. "Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom." "We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Cunning" Quotes from Famous Books



... witches! The name reminds one of the cunning Yankees, a race that would outwit Lucifer himself, if left to set the conditions to their bargain. Here is the Patroon, wishing to let in a family of the knaves among the honest Dutchmen of his manor; and we have just settled a dispute between ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the counsel for the defence. So far as Mr. Braham knew, only two could read, one of whom was the foreman, Mr. Braham's friend, the showy contractor. Low foreheads and heavy faces they all had; some had a look of animal cunning, while the most were only stupid. The entire panel formed that boasted heritage commonly described as the "bulwark of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... adverse to common humanity the spirit of the action, there is always to be found some legal gentleman, true to the lower instincts of the profession, ready to lend himself to his client's motives. And in this instance, the cunning Keepum finds an excellent instrument of furthering his ends, in one Peter Crimpton, a somewhat faded and rather disreputable member of the learned profession. It is said of Crimpton, that he is clever at managing cases where oppression rather than justice is sought, and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Dobson, or the Cunning Woman, a Comedy; acted and damn'd at the duke's theatre, printed in quarto, 1684. This is a translation ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... hunted are both of them racing, if they are only side by side, it is as good as though neither of them moved. [17] And the creature I have always envied," he continued, "the centaur—if only he had the intelligence and forethought of a man, the adroit skill and the cunning hand, with the swiftness and strength of a horse, so as to overtake all that fled before him, and overthrow all that resisted—why, all these powers I shall collect and gather in my own person when ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon


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