artful dodger

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner.

   • Timothy Mack has spent 13 years spiriting wallets from the pockets and purses of Los Angelenos, an artful dodger's career that has been interrupted by 20 arrests and two jail terms.
   • Perfect little con man and artful dodger, always on the make for some angle or another.
2. 2

   One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties.

   • I was a pussyfoot, an artful dodger, sidestepping abandoned children, waifs and strays, foundlings, castaways, and junk-people.
   • I could see the traps and landmines ahead and avoid them, a real artful dodger.
   • For the second time in two weeks, Oliver, a 9-year-old capuchin monkey at a Mississippi zoo, escaped his cage, and this time, his keepers said he proved to be an even more artful dodger.
3. 3

   Alternative form of artful dodger.

The neighborhood