Contextualizebeta

cunning

adj
/ˈkʌnɪŋ/

Etymology

From Middle English cunning, kunnyng, partially from Old English *cunning (verbal noun), from Old English cunnan (“to know how to, be able to”); partially from Old English cunnung (“knowledge, trial, probation, experience, contact, carnal knowledge”), from cunnian (“to search into, try, test, seek for, explore, investigate, experience, have experience of, to make trial of, know”), equivalent to con + -ing.

  1. inherited from cunnung — “knowledge, trial, probation, experience, contact, carnal knowledge”
  2. derived from cunnan — “to know how to, be able to”
  3. inherited from *cunning✻
  4. inherited from cunning

Definitions

  1. Sly

    Sly; crafty; clever in surreptitious behaviour.

    • They are resolved to be cunning; let others run the hazard of being sincere.

  2. Skillful, artful.

    • Esau was a cunning hunter.
    • a cunning workman
    • Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white / Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.

  3. Wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity

    Wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious.

    • cunning work
    • Over them Arachne high did lift / Her cunning web.
  4. ›+ 7 more definitions

    1. Cute, appealing.

      • everybody gives something to the cunning little boy; his eyes are large and soft, and he wears a pointed hat, and tight breeches, and jacket
      • “I shan't mind that at all, I like the little house 'cause it's got a garden, and there's a cunning room with a three-cornered closet in it that I always wanted.[…]”

    2. Practical knowledge or experience

      Practical knowledge or experience; aptitude in performance; skill, proficiency; dexterity.

      • indeed at this very moment he's slipped away with the utmost cunning into a form that's most perplexing to investigate.

    3. Practical skill employed in a secret or crafty manner

      Practical skill employed in a secret or crafty manner; craft; artifice; skillful deceit; art or magic.

      • Caliban: As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.

    4. The disposition to employ one's skill in an artful manner

      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.

      • the cunning of the fox or hare

    6. Knowledge

      Knowledge; learning; special knowledge (sometimes implying occult or magical knowledge).

    7. A surname.

The neighborhood

Derived

cunning folk, cunning linguist, cunning linguistics, cunningly, cunning man, cunningness, cunning woman, overcunning, uncunning, wortcunning

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at cunning. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01cunning02crafty03skill04learned05knowledgeable06well-informed07knowledge08knowing09shrewd

A definitional loop anchored at cunning. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at cunning

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA