cunning

Meanings

Adjective

• Sly; crafty; clever in surreptitious behaviour.
• Skillful, artful.
• Wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious.
• Cute, appealing.

Noun

• Practical knowledge or experience; aptitude in performance; skill, proficiency; dexterity.
• Practical skill employed in a secret or crafty manner; craft; artifice; skillful deceit; art or magic.
• The disposition to employ one's skill in an artful manner; craftiness; guile; artifice; skill of being cunning, sly, conniving, or deceitful.
• The natural wit or instincts of an animal.
• Knowledge; learning; special knowledge (sometimes implying occult or magical knowledge).

Related

Similar words

• craftiness
• foxship
• list

Origin

• From Middle English cunning, kunning, konnyng, alteration of earlier Middle English cunninde, kunnende, cunnand, from Old English cunnende, present participle of cunnan, equivalent to con + -ing. Cognate with Scots cunnand ("cunning"), German könnend ("able to do"), Icelandic kunnandi ("cunning"). More at con, can.
• From Middle English cunning, kunnyng, partially from Old English *cunning, from Old English cunnan; partially from Old English cunnung, from cunnian, equivalent to con + -ing.