Crossword clues for cunning
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cunning \Cun"ning\, n. [AS. cunnung trial, or Icel. kunnandi knowledge. See Cunning, a.]
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Knowledge; art; skill; dexterity. [Archaic]
Let my right hand forget her cunning.
--Ps. cxxxvii. 5.A carpenter's desert Stands more in cunning than in power.
--Chapman. -
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.
--Locke.We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom.
--Bacon.
Cunning \Cun"ning\ (k[u^]n"n[i^]ng), a. [AS. cunnan to know, to be able. See 1st Con, Can.]
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Knowing; skillful; dexterous. ``A cunning workman.'' -- Ex. xxxviii. 23.
``Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
--Shak.Esau was a cunning hunter.
--Gen xxv. 27. -
Wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious; curious; as, cunning work.
Over them Arachne high did lift
Her cunning web.
--Spenser. -
Crafty; sly; artful; designing; deceitful.
They are resolved to be cunning; let others run the hazard of being sincere.
--South. -
Pretty or pleasing; as, a cunning little boy. [Colloq. U.S.]
--Barlett.Syn: Cunning, Artful, Sly, Wily, Crafty.
Usage: 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. ``Acunning 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.''
--Crabb.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 14c., "learned, skillful," present participle of cunnen "to know" (see can (v.1)). Sense of "skillfully deceitful" is probably late 14c. As a noun from c.1300. Related: Cunningly.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 a. 1 sly; crafty; clever in surreptitious behaviour. 2 (context obsolete English) skillful, artful. 3 (context obsolete English) Wrought with, or exibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious. 4 (context US colloquial rare English) cute, appealing. Etymology 2
n. 1 (context obsolete English) knowledge; learning; special knowledge (sometimes implying occult or magical knowledge). 2 practical knowledge or experience; aptitude in performance; skill, proficiency; dexterity. 3 Practical skill employed in a secret or crafty manner; craft; artifice; skillful deceit. 4 The disposition to employ one's skill in an artful manner; craftiness; guile; artifice; skill of being cunning, sly, conniving, or deceitful. 5 The natural wit or instincts of an animal.
WordNet
adj. attractive especially by means of smallness or prettiness or quaintness; "a cute kid with pigtails"; "a cute little apartment"; "cunning kittens"; "a cunning baby" [syn: cute]
marked by skill in deception; "cunning men often pass for wise"; "deep political machinations"; "a foxy scheme"; "a slick evasive answer"; "sly as a fox"; "tricky Dik"; "a wily old attorney" [syn: crafty, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, sly, tricksy, tricky, wily]
showing inventiveness and skill; "a clever gadget"; "the cunning maneuvers leading to his success"; "an ingenious solution to the problem" [syn: clever, ingenious]
Wikipedia
Cunning (カンニング) was a Japanese comedy duo ( kombi) from Fukuoka Prefecture. Cunning consisted of the pudgy, short-tempered Takanori Takeyama (竹山隆範), and the rail-thin Tadayuki Nakashima (中島忠幸). Known for his bursts of extreme anger, though said to be much more sedated off-camera, Takeyama is the boke of the unit. The tsukkomi, Nakashima, fell ill with leukemia in 2005 and took indefinite leave from work until his death from pneumonia on December 20, 2006, aged 35.
The name of the duo, cunning, while meaning "sly" or "clever" in English, refers to the act of cheating on a test in Japanese.
Cunning may refer to:
- Cunning (owarai), Japanese comedy group
- Cunning folk, a type of folk magic user
Usage examples of "cunning".
Then calling on the name of Allah, he gave a last keen cunning sweep with the blade, and following that, the earth awfully quaked and groaned, as if speaking in the abysmal tongue the Mastery of the Event to all men.
The Parisian police, so much extolled for acumen, are cunning, but no more.
Fathom, believing that now was the season for working upon her passions, while they were all in commotion, became, if possible, more assiduous than ever about the fair mourner, modelled his features into a melancholy cast, pretended to share her distress with the most emphatic sympathy, and endeavoured to keep her resentment glowing by cunning insinuations, which, though apparently designed to apologise for his friend, served only to aggravate the guilt of his perfidy and dishonour.
As he jumped hastily to his feet, his face very red and his mouth flowing with apologies to the alcalde for his clumsiness, he glanced downward swiftly into one of his hands, and then, with another quick gleam of cunning triumph in his eyes, he quickly slipped the hand into one of his pockets, and, taking his place in front of the barrel, faced the alcalde.
I lays down and creeps forward, so cunning as a serpent, till I looks down atwixt the green stuff into the lane.
And, of course--leastways to my thinking--The Avenger is a madman--one of the cunning, quiet sort.
The blessing of the water is not essential to Baptism, but belongs to a certain solemnity, whereby the devotion of the faithful is aroused, and the cunning of the devil hindered from impeding the baptismal effect.
And above all the caravanners from Basilica, with their strange songs and seeds, images in glass and cunning tools, impossible fabrics that changed colors with the hours of the day, and their poems and stories that taught the Sotchitsiya how wise and refined men and women spoke and thought and dreamed and lived.
But Blinky was cunning enough to know that, and instead kept very still until at last the man placed him on the ground.
The cunning wizard allowed some moments to transpire, following the first tentative steps of the dwarf into the boisterous environs of the pub.
Parsnip and Bunion, their monkey faces sharp and cunning with hidden knowledge.
The Lords of Life and Death were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted.
I was not vain enough to suppose that they loved me, but I could well enough admit that my kisses had influenced them in the same manner that their kisses had influenced me, and, believing this to be the case, it was evident that, with a little cunning on my part, and of sly practices of which they were ignorant, I could easily, during the long night I was going to spend with them, obtain favours, the consequences of which might be very positive.
Although I was delighted at having obtained every favour I could possibly wish for in the uncomfortable position we had been in, I racked my brain to contrive the means of securing more complete enjoyment for the following night, but I found during the afternoon that the feminine cunning of my beautiful Greek was more fertile than mine.
Possessing about one hundred sequins, and enjoying good health, I was very proud of my success, in which I could not see any cause of reproach to myself, for the cunning I had brought into play to insure the sale of my secret could not be found fault with except by the most intolerant of moralists, and such men have no authority to speak on matters of business.