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Cunning   /kˈənɪŋ/   Listen
Cunning

adjective
1.
Attractive especially by means of smallness or prettiness or quaintness.  Synonym: cute.  "A cute little apartment" , "Cunning kittens" , "A cunning baby"
2.
Marked by skill in deception.  Synonyms: crafty, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, sly, tricksy, tricky, wily.  "Deep political machinations" , "A foxy scheme" , "A slick evasive answer" , "Sly as a fox" , "Tricky Dick" , "A wily old attorney"
3.
Showing inventiveness and skill.  Synonyms: clever, ingenious.  "The cunning maneuvers leading to his success" , "An ingenious solution to the problem"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cunning" Quotes from Famous Books



... be said, had but one law—that of fighting fire with fire. Against cunning, woodcraft and daring he would array precisely the same weapons. In short, he knew of no other method, and would have laughed to scorn any different line of procedure, with the single exception of its attempt by the one man who ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... therefore, he smiled at the rascal's knavery. Chico Velasques was followed in his chieftainship by Blanco, who did his utmost to walk in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor; but, he was not so cunning, and was less successful in his encounters with the Americans and Mexicans, and therefore had not that influence with his tribe which the former possessed. Still, he performed his quantum of mischief, and yet lives to play his part in the great drama ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... a leg of mutton; or as when the power of the human intellect transforms a pound of zinc into telegrams, or a ton of niter and sulphur into death and destruction. Now if man can thus control and use the laws of nature for human purposes, why can not the God who made him so cunning do as much? Aye, and as much more as God ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... their feet at almost every step sinking in the mire and becoming shackled by interlacing roots, the branches pinioning their arms, and the dense foliage blinding their eyes. Philip, with characteristic cunning, sent a few of his warriors occasionally to exhibit themselves, to lure the English on. The colonists gradually forgot their accustomed prudence, and pressed eagerly forward. Suddenly from the dense thicket a party of warriors in ambush poured upon their pursuers ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... The Earth man laughed uproariously. The din was making him light-headed. It was so funny! Just in time he had caught that cunning expression and prepared for the outlashing of feet designed to plunge him into the red cavern below and to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." By rede craft we find out what other men have done; we get our book learning, we are made heirs to thoughts that breathe and words that burn, we enter into the life, the acts, the arts, the loves, the lore of the wise, the witty, the cunning, and the worthy of all ages and all places; we learn, as says the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... different, and should be called a city. There were elevated roads laid off in squares that run with great precision from one little house to the other. There are dozens and dozens of houses—perhaps a hundred—in the marshy lake, and the amount of intelligence and cunning the little animals have shown in the construction of their houses and elevated roads is worth studying. They are certainly ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... omitted those of Reyneval and Hennin, the two eyes of Count de Vergennes. The former is the most important character, because possessing the most of the confidence of the Count. He is rather cunning than wise, his views of things being neither great nor liberal. He governs himself by principles which he has learned by rote, and is fit only for the details of execution. His heart is susceptible of little passions, but not of good ones. He is brother-in-law to M. Gerard, from whom ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... restrained, however, by no other feeling than that of avarice, for the slaves are too valuable to be destroyed. In their physiognomy these Malays are inferior to the Dyaks: they have a strong resemblance to the monkey in face, with an air of low cunning and rascality most unprepossessing. In stature they are very low, and generally bandy-legged. Their hair and eyes are invariably black, but the face is, in most cases, devoid of hair; when it does grow, it is only at the extreme point ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... aren't you the luckiest girl!" cried Tabitha, looking enviously at the treasure as she bent over it to smooth the soft, shaggy coat. "Just see what beau-ti-ful ears he has! And what a cunning nose! See him lick ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... her he had meant that letter— yes, she was sure of it! To her, as though for another, he had spoken those words—she remembered every one of them. He had not dared to speak directly. And he had made her write them down. Foolish boy that he was, he had been cunning. Did she forgive him? She could not help ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... supported slaves who followed trades. All were skilled in religious discipline, expert in strategy, pitiless and rich. They looked wearied of prolonged cares. Their flaming eyes expressed distrust, and their habits of travelling and lying, trafficking and commanding, gave an appearance of cunning and violence, a sort of discreet and convulsive brutality to their whole demeanour. Further, the influence of the god cast ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London. He's a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a Royal Duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. I've ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... his payment among others that did stay on purpose to do it (and which is strange among the rest my Lord Ashly, who did cause Creed to write it presently and kept two or three of them with him by cunning to stay and sign it), but Creed's ill nature (though never so well bribed, as it hath lately in this case by twenty pieces) will not be overcome from his usual delays. Thence failing of meeting Sir W. Coventry I took leave of Creed (very good friends) and away home, and there took out my father, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... setting of sugar. The cargo had been well shipped by men skilled in the subtle art of contraband. It was billed, and the barrels were addressed, to a firm in Calford whose reputation for integrity was quite unimpeachable. Herein was the cunning of the smugglers. The sugar barrels were never intended to reach Calford. They were not robbing the consignees in this raid upon the freight train. They were simply possessing themselves, in unorthodox fashion, of an illicit cargo that belonged to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... wine enough and to spare, beer too, and mead—enough to drown a herd of cattle. And as the guests drank and grew merry and proud they set to boasting. This one bragged of his riches, that one of his wife. Another boasted of his cunning, another of his new house, another of his strength, and this one was angry because they would not let him show how he could lift the table on one hand. They all drank Ivan's health, and he drank theirs, and ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome

... undertook the campaign, letting drive such a brisk fire the next day that the Sitkans came suing for peace by the afternoon. Three days the cunning savages stayed the Russian attack on pretence of arranging hostages. Hailing the fort on the morning of the 6th and securing no answer, Lisiansky again played his cannon on the barricade. That night a curious sound, that was neither chant ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... Lifting his hands, with fingers spread, he stares at it; then looks again at JACK, clenching his fist as if to batter in his sleeping, smiling face. Suddenly he tilts the rest o f the whisky into the glass and drinks it. With cunning glee he takes the silver box and purse and pockets them.] I 'll score you off too, that 's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... paid in money; the barreteros receiving six reals per day, and the hapires only four. During the boyas the laborers receive instead of their wages in money, a share of the ore. The Indians often try to appropriate to themselves surreptitiously pieces of ore; but to do this requires great cunning and dexterity, so narrowly are they watched by the mayor-domos. Nevertheless, they sometimes succeed. One of the hapires related to me how he had contrived to carry off a most valuable piece of silver. He fastened it on his back, and then wrapping himself in his poncho, he pretended ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... lawmakers who begin with so ambitious an exordium, and who lay the cornerstone of their edifice upon the solid rock of political principle? The anti-climax of performance which followed would be laughably absurd, were it not marked by the cunning of a well-matured political plot. Their first step was to recommend the repeal of "all laws whatsoever, which may have been considered to have been in force" in the Territory on the 1st day of July, 1855, thus forever ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... he shuld come to my house, Well wife, you had best worke closely, Or I am like to goe beyond your cunning: I now wil seeke my guesse that comes to dinner, And in good time see where they all are ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... foot of the bed, and directed his little cunning eyes to the physician in amazement and admiration. Behind him, in the corner, sat the son of Marie Antoinette, humiliated, still, and motionless. Yet, in spite of the injunction of Jeanne Marie, he ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... lived very expensively, spent several years abroad, and being very clever in his way, returned, bringing them all pedigrees of the very best kind. With only two exceptions, he traced them all down into noble blood. These two, the cunning fellow had it, came of martyrs. And to have come of the blood of martyrs, when all the others, as was shown, came of noble blood, so displeased-the most ingenious (the old lady shakes her head regrettingly) can't please everybody-the living ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... to a very clear decision. First of all he would defeat the cunning Anderson at his own game; then he would rescue his countrymen from their unfortunate and precarious condition; and, finally, he would return to Marjorie to claim his reward. Altogether he had spent an advantageous and a delightful afternoon. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... joy. Long before the heart dare resort to coarse, material words, the smile carries the messages of affection. To the villain it reveals the sympathetic purposes of his according fiend. What the lead and line are to the pilot, the smile, the cunning, dissembling smile, is to the base mind. By means of it he feels his way into the heart and soul of his ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... about as he pleased, was glad to be free again and able to bark at the birds and chase the butterflies. The country around them was charming, yet in the pretty fields of wild-flowers and groves of leafy trees were no houses whatever, or sign of any inhabitants. Birds flew through the air and cunning white rabbits darted amongst the tall grasses and green bushes; Dorothy noticed even the ants toiling busily along the roadway, bearing gigantic loads of clover seed; but of people ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... to "Yama," however, can be given in Kuprin's own words, as uttered by the reporter Platonov. "They do write," he says, "... but it is all either a lie, or theatrical effects for children of tender years, or else a cunning symbolism, comprehensible only to the sages of the future. But the life itself no one as ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... surprises. While her mother sat in her easy-chair, with a more cheerful face than she had worn for years, Dora went about finding every now and then something new. There were hyacinths from Helen and Carie, Elsie's pincushion on the bureau, a table cover from Constance, and on the sideboard a cunning teapot, with this touching verse ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... cunning of long practice, he would read the sign in the snow, and by means of craftily concealed iron jaws and innocent appearing deadfalls, renew with increased confidence in his "winter set," the world-old battle ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... very poet of a passion flower, such holy mysteries as its opening petals disclosed to him! To Lucy Grey, who wore pensive curls, and had a sweet voice, he presented constantly fragrant little sprays of mignonette, cunning moss baskets with a suspicion of heliotrope peeping out, and crushed myrtle blossoms between the leaves of her most exquisitely bound books. To Katy Lessing, who rowed a small green boat somewhere up the Hudson in the summer, he confided the fact that water lilies were his admiration: he loved ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... of defense are its lively little heels, which it uses vigorously when attacked. It is a very wise and cunning beast, and as its sharp ears detect the slightest rustling among the bushes, it is very difficult to approach. The hyenas leave the zebra in peace, and even lions and leopards rarely engage in battle with it. They are quite ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... incident of the poisoned glove, and the swift execution of the would-be murderer, and had made Cecil her only confidant. But he did know that Elizabeth herself had commanded Michel de la Foret to the lists; and his mad jealousy impelled him to resort to a satanic cunning towards these two fugitives, who seemed to have mounted within a few short days as far as had he in thrice as many years to a high place in the regard of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... force, and that they petitioned those that were within to let them in; and rushing upon the Romans perpetually, with violence, they then came back, and seemed to be in great disorder. Now the Roman soldiers thought this cunning stratagem of theirs was to be believed real, and thinking they had the one party under their power, and could punish them as they pleased, and hoping that the other party would open their gates to them, set to the execution ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... an unembodied spirit being. That is, unembodied, save as in much cunning, with deep, dark purpose he secures embodiment ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... I said to myself, "is the cause of it all; she alone has conceived these crimes, and has consummated them. But by what means? Has she had recourse to cunning alone, or has she obtained the intervention of invisible powers?" I walked to and fro in my retreat. An inward voice cried out: "It is not in vain that Providence permitted you to see Fledermausse contemplating the agonies of her victim. It is not in vain that the soul ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... not much like him, he had such restless black eyes and such a cunning smile. His face showed that he was a foreigner; it was as brown as a nut. His dress also was very strange; he wore a red turban, and had large earrings in his ears, and silver chains wound round and ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow

... power—the levying of general taxes. And they had gained greatly in political experience. Long years of watchfulness, of resistance to encroachments upon their rights, had moulded them into a body that the most cunning executive could neither cajole nor intimidate. Unmindful of the anger of Governors, the rebukes of Kings, of personal loss, even of imprisonment, they had upheld the people's rights. And their descendants were to reap the reward of their ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... and leaned to look out, identifying ancient landmarks with many reminiscences. Dick fixed his weather eye on the curve of Maisie's cheek, very near his own, and watched the blood rise under the clear skin. He congratulated himself upon his cunning, and looked that the evening would ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... young author who aspires to write novels must not only labor to acquire the technic of his art: it is even more important that he should so order his life as to grow cunning in the basic truths of human nature. His first problem—the problem of acquiring technic—is comparatively easy. Technic may be learned from books—the master-works of art in fiction. It may be studied empirically. The student may observe ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... his bushy brows he looked at her with a gleam of cunning. He went to the door and, turning there, pointed the finger of scorn at Lisa, stout and tearful. He gave a short laugh of a low-born contempt, and departed without ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... see me: Macaire: elegant, immoral, invincible in cunning; well, Bertrand, much as it may surprise you, I am simply ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... Infelice's face, her brow, her eye, The dimple on her cheek: and such sweet skill Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown, These lips look fresh and lively as her own. False colours last after the true be dead. Of all the roses grafted on her cheeks, Of all the graces dancing in her eyes, Of all the music set upon her tongue, Of all that was past woman's ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... to some semblance of calm. He was a perfect mountebank, a consummate actor, and now he called to his aid his full powers of deception. Cunning should win the day since ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a bewildered and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive air that the magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in the Charlemagne yard ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... all about were samples of Hen Tomlins' art. Hen was a rare workman, their minister told them. With his box of tools and his cunning hands Hen had taken old, broken but still beautiful heirloom furniture and refashioned it into new life ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... hard, Captain Sinclair," said Alfred. "Martin has a contempt for wolves, and that wolf would not have stood his ground had it been a man instead of two young women who were in face of him. Wolves are very cunning, and I know will attack a woman or child when they will fly from a man. Besides, it is very unusual for a wolf to remain till daylight, even when there is offal to tempt him. It was the offal, the animal's extreme hunger, and the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... occupants of his lodging.... Isoult, he saw, stood in the middle of the room leaning on the table with both her hands; her bead was hanging, and her hair veiled all her face. Near her, also standing, was the old man—a sturdy knowing old villain, with a world of cunning and mischief in his pair of pig's eyes. His scanty hair, his beard, were white; his eyebrows were white and altogether monstrous. He blinked at Prosper, but said nothing. The third was a woman, infinitely old as it seemed, crouched over the fired peats with her back to the room. She never ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... next letter in the box was one from the management, crisp and to the point, informing the Duchess that her services would not be required that night or thereafter. It was the subtle meanness of the blow that roused the indignation of "The Rose of America" chorus, the cunning villainy with which ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... like this was decidedly a novelty; Wyndham's formula had invariably been, "Telson, hold out your hand," and then if Telson had anything to remark he was at liberty to do so. But to be thus invited to make excuses was an unexpected treat which these cunning juniors were quite sharp enough ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... cunning of her kind Lizzie dressed herself in her best; a soiled pink silk shirtwaist with elbow sleeves, a spotted and torn black skirt that showed a tattered orange silk petticoat beneath its ungainly length, a wide white hat with soiled and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... love-tragedy has never been written; it lies buried there with the lovers. But a contemporary said that the fear of an enforced separation broke the young woman's heart; and this we know, that after her death, Raphael's hand forgot its cunning, and his frame was ripe for the fever that was so soon to burn out the strands ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... watchful care. No human mother bending over the nursery bed soothing her little one to rest, showed more devotion than did she, as she hovered near the tiny cradle of coarse grass and leaves woven by her own cunning skill—alert and sleepless when danger was near and enfolding us with her warm, soft wings. Thus tenderly cared for we passed the early sunny days ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... him as he thus spoke; he was looking at a spider's web, and he continued, 'Thou cunning little weaver, thou dost teach me perseverance. Let any one tear thy web, and thou wilt begin again and repair it. Let it be entirely destroyed, thou wilt resolutely begin to make another till it is completed. So ought we to do, if we ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... were already aware of his desire and his friendly disposition. During the voyage the king of Chanpan, like the tyrant and pirate that he is, treacherously robbed and captured them, and held them in that captivity until they were obliged to leave in flight, with much cunning and craft, alone and taking nothing with them. After suffering immense hardships, they arrived at his city poor and in ill condition. The said king of Canvoja received them kindly, treated them well, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... man, and you're a little boy, I shall ask you to have some jam," I should have failed entirely to smother my laughter. Do you think the doleful one would have seen the fun of the remark if she had any power over the body or soul of that devoted child? Nay. She would have whined about slyness, and cunning hints, and greediness, and the probabilities of utter ruin and disgrace overtaking underhand schemers, until that child would have been stunned, puzzled, deprived of self-respect, and rendered entirely wretched. Long ago ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... temper resented it. But his cunning robbed him of the retort that leapt to his lips. And all the while the girl's cold, pretty eyes provoked those passions in him which the dead mother had dreaded. Keeko could have no understanding of the unbridled licence rampant in his ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... there, the person destined for this purpose was, significantly enough, not the legal deputy of the monarch, the prefect of the city, but a confidant without officially-recognized jurisdiction, usually Caesar's banker, the cunning and pliant Phoenician merchant Lucius Cornelius Balbus from Gades. In administration Caesar was above all careful to resume the keys of the state-chest—which the senate had appropriated to itself after the fall of the regal power, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... without much delay, yet every consideration makes it desirable to save the men from heavy hauling as long as possible. So I devoutly hope the 70 miles will come in the present order of things. Snippets and Nobby now walk by themselves, following in the tracks well. Both have a continually cunning eye on their driver, ready to stop the moment he pauses. They eat snow every few minutes. It's a relief not having to lead an animal; such trifles annoy one on these marches, the animal's vagaries, his everlasting attempts to eat his head ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... down and tracked me to my lair; but gazing back, I saw my pursuer was a tall and ungainly man, with a straw-coloured moustache, apparently American, and that he was following me on his machine, closely watching my action. He had such a cunning expression on his face, and seemed so strangely inquisitive, with eyes riveted on my treadles, that I didn't quite like the look of him. I put on the pace, to see if I could outstrip him, for I am a swift cyclist. But his long legs were too much for ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... from inability to fuse unfamiliar thoughts into a coherent conception. I have insisted on this at some length in "Life and Habit," but can do so no further here. (Note: Butler returned to this subject in "Luck, or cunning?" which was originally published ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler

... thou be dull, That thou canst not do, yet thou mayest see; For many a man that may not stand a pull, Yet likes it him at wrestling for to be, And deeme* whether he doth bet,** or he; *judge **better And, if thou haddest cunning* to endite, *skill I shall thee showe matter *of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... down the slope towards us; as they rolled they disengaged little avalanches of rapid sparks, and when they reached the ground they sometimes fell against a vine stump and set it in a blaze for a moment. They said that this is Etna's cunning way of taking a glass of wine; he opens a mouth and consumes a vineyard. All the time there was a roaring noise like coals being thrown on the fire, only much louder, and the great sloping wall glowed in the places where open crevasses ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... of this want of respect was forwarded to their Colonels. Our billiard-marker, too, a high-caste Brahmin who had served on our side in the Afghan campaigns of 1839-42 in the capacity of a spy, a man of cunning and intelligence, warned us in unmistakable terms of the increasing disaffection among the sepoys of Ferozepore, and stated his opinion that the spirit of mutiny was rife among them. We laughed at his fears, and dismissed from our minds all alarm, vaunting our superiority in arms to the dusky soldiery ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... brain fever; and that night Ellerton and Saville had to hold him down in his bed to prevent him throwing himself from the window. He very nearly did it once in the cunning of his madness, when they left him unguarded for a moment; and after that they had ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... the position in which they are develops a kind of cunning rather than acuteness or cleverness?-Yes; it fosters a sort of low cunning. The system having been continued, one might almost say, for centuries has fostered that element ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... the leopard when it leaps from the bush where it crouches, the daring which is half cunning, eh, my friend?" said the Swami comfortably. "Here, take the package and go thy way. There will be more in the future. These I brought with me from India, and even the eagle customs found them not. Many night-hours have I spent in preparing them, and mine eyes have been robbed of sleep. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... disapprove of the plan and spirit of this work, (Deism Revealed.) The cold-hearted, worldly-minded, cunning Deist, or the coarse sensual Infidel, is of all men the least likely to be converted; and the conscientious, inquiring, though misled and perplexed, Sceptic will throw aside a book at once, as not applicable to his case, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... see, my dear Allen, said the old General, waxing warmer, you can also see what an awful mess such a situation would have been, if the British programme had been carried out in full. But Providence willed otherwise. All the tangled web that the cunning of English diplomacy could weave around our unsuspecting commissioners at Ghent was torn to pieces, and soaked with British blood, in half an hour, at New Orleans, by the never-missing rifles of my Tennessee and Kentucky pioneers; and that ended it. British diplomacy ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... memory," he said. "You learn very fast." Then he added after a moment's hesitation: "You make good Wyandot. Wyandots small nation, but bravest, most cunning and most enduring of all. Wyandot being burned at the stake calls for his pipe and smokes it peacefully while he dies ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... keener judge in the East. He would be a cunning man who would succeed in taking him in about the value of anything from a ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... of these two confederates, there was another man who was devising a cunning scheme for obtaining the prize. This was the mate of a merchant ship that had put into the port of New York in a damaged condition, and had there been sold. The mate, being thus left without a vessel, was now returning as a passenger in the steamer, to ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men, will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... up, to seek without delay the realization of that one idea which now possessed him—a crock of gold. When he put together one thing and another, he considered it almost certain that Ben had flung away among the lot no mere honey-pot, but perhaps indeed a money-pot: Burke hadn't half the cunning of a child; more fool he, and maybe so much the better for me, thought money-bitten, selfish Roger. Thus, in the night's hot imaginations, he resolved to find the spoil; to will, was then to do: to do, was ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... certain islands eight degrees to the northward of the line, from which islands came in a great number of canoas, having in some of them four, in some six, and in some also fourteen men, bringing with them cocos and other fruits. Their canoas were hollow within and cut with great art and cunning, being very smooth within and without, and bearing a gloss as if it were a horn daintily burnished, having a prow and a stern of one sort, yielding inward circle-wise, being of a great height, and full of certain white shells for a bravery; and on each side of them ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty

... allied to folly! The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning, know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... in his predecessor's school! "Twenty-four hours is something," thought I, and determined to try the cunning ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... from me the night before, and on Christmas morning, though exceedingly weak, I was up and dressed, and lecturing Ferajji, the cook, upon the importance of this day to white men, and endeavouring to instil into the mind of the sleek and pampered animal some cunning secrets of the culinary art. Fat broad-tailed sheep, goats, zogga and pombe, eggs, fresh milk, plantains, singwe, fine cornflour, fish, onions, sweet potatoes, &c., &c., were procured in the Ujiji market, and from good old Moeni Kheri. But, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... brothers—are reached and scotched. As for myself, I am past praying for; but thousands of others could and ought to be saved—by drastic measures and a stern exposure. The fellows in this business are as cunning as the devil; the stuff arrives by roundabout channels and from the most surprising quarters. Now and then they allow a consignment to be seized, but as a mere blind, a sop, and trade flourishes; there is no business to touch it in ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... that popular tradition would attempt to account for both, but how are we to explain the fact, that both Norseman and African account for it in the same way—that both owe their loss to the superior cunning of another animal. In Europe the fox bears away the palm for wit from all other animals, so he it is that persuades the bear in the Norse Tales to sit with his tail in a hole in the ice till it is fast frozen in, and snaps short off when he tries to tug it out. In Bornou, in the heart of Africa, ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... he's showing us some consideration in not riding the beast down to the settlement," Blake remarked with a dubious smile, feeling strongly annoyed with himself for not taking more precautions. With the cunning which the lust for drink breeds in its victims Benson had outwitted him by feigning acquiescence. "Anyway," he added, "I'll have to go after him. We must have the horse, for one thing; but I suppose we'll lose four days. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... when Billy treated her to a slow and surreptitious wink, his freckled countenance grinning beneath the rosetted hat. It never could have occurred to Emmy Lou that Billy had laid his cunning plans to this very end. Emmy Lou understood nothing of all this. She only pitied Billy. And presently, when public attention had become diverted, she proffered him the hospitality of a grimy little slate rag. When Billy returned the rag there was something in it—something wrapped ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... effect of careful education, good society, and refined habits of life, on average temper and character. Of deep and true gentlemanliness—based as it is on intense sensibility and sincerity, perfected by courage, and other qualities of race; as well as of that union of insensibility with cunning, which is the essence of vulgarity, I shall have to speak at length in ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... possibly be one of the chief charms of it, after a little. A garden formed on this plan—or lack of plan—will seem to have evolved itself, and the utter absence of all formality will make it a more cunning imitation of Nature's methods than it would ever be if we began it with the ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... great lady and so all is of a respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she would commit betises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is hidden with the cunning of a fox." ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... diversified by general conversation. Often they spoke about Zillah, but very seldom was it that they went beyond this. Miss Krieff showed no desire to speak of the subject which they once had touched upon, and Gualtier was too cunning to be obtrusive. So the weeks passed by without any renewal of that confidential conversation in which they ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... the difficulties presented by the terrain, the British patrols in the evacuated territory constantly encountered isolated bodies of German defensive troops who, obedient to their instructions, fought bravely to hold the positions they had been assigned to. Everything that cunning could devise was resorted to to delay the British advance. An Australian patrol discovered in one place a chain stretched across a ravine which was connected with a mine at ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... supposed spirit recommended to the perusal of her friend Mrs. Bargrave, instead of sleeping on the editor's shelf, moved off by thousands at once; the story, incredible in itself, and unsupported as it was by evidence or enquiry, was received as true, merely from the cunning of the narrator, and the addition of a number of adventitious circumstances, which no man alive could have conceived as having occurred to the mind of a person ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... do most truly believe that the cunning Knickerbocker, in his desire to vindicate, as he thought, the character of his race against the accusation of immorality, hath by his denial not only committed a grievous sin against "the truth of history," but hath greatly ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles

... to make me take over-ready offence at what he said, or at his haughty looks: in other words, that I had not value enough for him to treat him with peculiarity either by smiles or frowns. Indeed he had cunning enough to give me, undesignedly, a piece of instruction which taught me this caution; for he had said in conversation once, 'That if a man could not make a woman in courtship own herself pleased with him, it was as much and oftentimes more to his purpose ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... bade of craftsmen deft at large to seek the skilfullest, the most curious and cunning to work structures of stone;— upon that chosen site God's temple to grace as the Guarder of souls gave her rede from on high. She the Rood hight with gold to inlay and the glory of gems, with the most prized of precious stones to set with high art;— and in a silver chest secure ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... his head perforce to see that the boat was not proceeding towards some other dangerous obstacle. Then Markham, with the sudden swift cunning of madness, lifted the butt end of his pole and struck ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... they record the sweetness of their bliss, I will apply to further, as they wish, Their[121] sweet delight by magic's cunning so, That happy they shall live ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... unlike twin—the old childish Paul of the sad, far-seeing eyes. Sometimes out of the cracked looking-glass his wistful, yearning face would plead to me; but I would sternly shake my head. I knew well his cunning. Had I let him have his way, he would have led me through the maze of streets he knew so well, past the broken railings (outside which he would have left my body standing), along the weedy pathway, through the cracked and dented ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... this we saw them move a little to our right, and expected them on the rear, when a cunning fellow, a Cossack, as they call them, of Jarawena, in the pay of the Muscovites, calling to the leader of the caravan, said to him, "I will send all these people away to Sibeilka." This was a city four or five days journey at least to the south, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... to insanity is found in the book of Deuteronomy. Another reference is in Samuel where it speaks concerning David's cunning and successful feigning of insanity. "And he changed his behavior before them and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the door-posts of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard," Feigning insanity under distressing circumstances has ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... a very simple expedient, which I believe is often used in the North—among your prairie trappers here. Several bladders were taken from the vicunas and inflated. They were then tied upon poles of maguey, and set upright over the carcasses, so as to dangle and dance about in the wind. Cunning as is the Andes wolf this 'scare' is sufficient to keep him off, as well as his ravenous associate, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... sealed ones, by the strongest consolations of the Spirit, by the gentleness of Jesus Christ, that Plant of renown, by your last accounts, and by your appearing before God, when the white throne shall be up, be not deceived with these fair words: though my spirit be astonished at the cunning distinctions, which are found out in the matters of the covenant, that help may be had against this man; yet my heart trembleth to entertain the least thought of joining with these deceivers[137]." Accordingly he joined the remonstrators, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... shorthorned Hereford hidden in the innermost recesses of that tick and sand-fly infested ti-tree that knew not the cunning of a stockman's hand." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... vanity. Was I not a countryman and as rustic-minded as they? But I had come from another community, had crossed a state line and the lines of several counties, and besides I took to myself the credit of having read many a cunning book, and therefore these people were surely more simple than I. Traveling unquestionably gathers knowledge, but the man who reads has ever a feeling that he is the proper critic of the ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... Zulu by birth, but having lived much with white men, as a hunter and guide, he had taken to wearing ordinary clothes and spoke English perfectly well: but within him he had all the pluck and cunning of his race. ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... discarding all cunning, A length to the front went the rider in green; A long strip of stubble, and then the big double, Two stiff flights of rails with ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... highly satisfied with his cunning detective work, slipped out and joined his impatient companion, Perkins, who agreed to communicate straightway with Lieutenant Gaines, commandant at Fort Stoddart, a post on the Tombigbee. Having secured a canoe and a colored boy to paddle it, Colonel Perkins, on the following morning, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... the Gaiba, at the foot of the mountains, the beach slopes gently down, and is covered with golden sand, in which crystals sparkle as though set in fine gold by some cunning workman. A Workman, yes—but not of earth, for nature is here untouched, unspoilt as yet by man, and the traveller can look right away from ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... those of a higher order of anthropoid apes: the lower portion—jaws, lips, and teeth—salient; the nostrils opening at almost right angles, the eyes tiny and bright, the forehead seamed and wrinkled—unnaturally old. Their general expression was of simian cunning and a ferocity that was ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... Think how this attraction must be redoubled, when the contest is with man, when it is man that is to be destroyed. Instead of the single faculty of courage, all must be called into action—courage, cunning, foresight, eloquence, intrigue. What springs to put in motion! what plans to develop! To sport with all the passions, to touch the chords of love and friendship, and so draw the prey into one's net—that is a glorious chase—it is a delight, a ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... conuenient bases and their chapters curiously made vnder the beame, ouer the which was a Zophor, wherein were carued little naked Boyes playing in the water, with water monsters, with wrastling and childish strifes, with cunning flights and agilities fit for their yeares, in liuely motions and sportes. Al which was beautiful ouer compassed about with a Coronice. Ouer the which, according to the order of the little Collumies, from the perpendicular poynt in the toppe of the Cupul or Suffite ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... be under his orders than under yours. There, I have no more to say, except this—whether they succeed or not, your plans are both excellent; but you cannot expect to do anything by force. This is a case for scheme and cunning. Under the darkness it may be done. What I should like best would be for you to get that breech-block overboard. If you can do the other too, so much the better, but I shall be perfectly satisfied if you can do one, and get back safely into the river. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... broke the magic spell. Joyfully the Franks set to work to fell the huge trees and construct vaster, stronger engines than before, under the direction of a master mechanic. At the same time, Vafrino, a cunning squire of Tancred, was commissioned to go forth in disguise and inspect the camp of the coming Egyptian king. Even before he departed, a carrier pigeon, driven back by a hawk, fell into Godfrey's hands, bearing a message to Aladine from Egypt, saying that ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... an exaggerated assumption of important cunning. Presently he threw over his shoulder a rapid sentence in a foreign tongue. It sounded like Spanish, and Orme inferred that it was ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... faith which I reposed in my make-up, a doubt and a tremor disturbed me now, as I found myself thus scrutinized by those cunning old eyes looking out from the mask-like, apish face. For the ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... affairs, and, where facts failed, calling in the aid of fancy; and when there was nothing more to be discovered or invented, to lighten their money-chests by all the tyranny that power dare venture on, or the effrontery that cunning could devise and execute. Their curiosity regarding Tchitchikof was soon baffled, by discovering, like Socrates, that all they knew was, that nothing could be known. In vain did mine host essay to pump him: with a show of the most voluble confidence, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various

... shone out to me in the guise of tapestried chronicles, ancient as those of Bayeux, describing deeds of gallant chivalry—so my fancy pictured—and love, and knight-errantry, painted over with oriental arabesques in crimson gilding, the cunning handiwork of the potent sun-god. Her coming in effected all this to ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... calling. He thought of Mlle. Fouchette. It was true, then, that these human brutes from the abattoirs were here. That other type, the "camelot,"—he of the callous, cadaverous face, thinly clad body, cunning ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... pretty, but they all like me very much. I have a pretty baby-kitten, and I have a daughter named Tortoise-shell. She is a pretty and good cat. She also has a baby-kitten prettier than mine. Mine has such big eyes that its little face does not look as cunning as my daughter's baby-kitten's face. My mistress is very good to me sometimes, but sometimes she pulls my tail and makes me mad, and I scratch her and then she slaps me back; but when she is good to me, and pets me, and gives me cake, then I purr ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... observed, that he must have been a bailiff of small experience, who would trust a prisoner of that consequence in such an unguarded place. "If the captain," said he, "had fallen into the hands of such a cunning rascal as the fellow that arrested me, he would not have found it such an easy matter to escape; for the manner in which I was caught is perhaps the most extraordinary that ever was practised in these realms. You must know, gentlemen, I suffered such losses by insuring vessels during ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... believe that Scotland Yard has on occasion displayed considerable intelligence, and I regret that novelists will never allow it to be as cunning even as myself in guessing the identity of the villains of their criminal plots. Mrs. Charles Bryce, for instance, might, without unduly taxing the imagination, have credited the Force with the coup of bringing to justice the murderer of Mrs. Vanderstein, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various

... O cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that emboss. The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan, So, (But would I could know, but would I could know,) With your ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... accomplishment of his plans. In these circumstances Bernadotte offered his services to all persons connected with the Government who, like himself, were averse to the change which he saw good reason to apprehend. But Bonaparte was not the man to be outdone in cunning or activity; and every moment swelled the ranks of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Whence came the strange civilisation of the American races—Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Inca? To Mexico and Yucatan and Guatemala, to Quito and Peru, whence came the peoples who built stone temples, pyramids, halls, tombs, inscribed hieroglyphics, and wrought cunning arts, such as by their ruins, relics, and traditions arouse our admiration even to-day. History does not say, yet what glimmerings of history and legend there are serve to take us farther back in time, although scarcely to a fixed starting-point, for the thread of the tale ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... verdict. I addressed the prisoners very severely and sentenced them to do the Chasm hole from 6.0 A.M. to 6.0 P.M. every day for a week, to take out cards and play out every stroke. "You, Winthrop," I said, "with your gentlemanly cunning, your subtle pretensions of righteousness—" But there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various

... think like that, Master Nic, let's risk it. Old Humpy's cunning enough, but p'raps two heads'll be better than one, and we can beat him. What do you zay to ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... all around it. They didn't have much money, but they had each other, and that meant so much to them. At last a little stranger came to their home, a dear baby boy, and then their cup of joy was full. He was so sweet and cunning, and they were never tired of watching him grow. Then something terrible happened. The father of the baby ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... in a curious half-cunning way, as he beat out his clay into a broad sheet; and then, as if about to make a pudding, he made the hedgehog into a long ball, laid it on the clay, and covered it up, rolling it over and over till there was nothing ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... notice, a kind of deep breath like a suppressed hiccough. Snatching up one of the two lighted dips, he looked round the walls, and beheld old Sechard's empurpled countenance filling up a square opening above a door hitherto hidden by a pile of empty casks in the cellar itself. The cunning old man had brought David and Kolb into his underground distillery by the outer door, through which the casks were rolled when full. The inner door had been made so that he could roll his puncheons straight from the cellar into the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... poor little baby—it is so sick and it cheers Mrs. Narnay up a little if I call on her. Besides, Sophie and the little boys are just as cunning as they can be. I can't help ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... the hero, stricken to death by a poison shaft sped by the hand of a treacherous and implacable foe, remounted his horse to insure the safe retreat of his tribe and died leaning on his lance. His enemies, smitten with terror by the memory of his prowess, dared not advance, till one cunning warrior devised a strategem which startled the horse out of its marble stillness. The creature gave a bound and Antar's corpse, left unsupported, fell ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... an age replete with valuable opportunities for cunning people, and they are the losers who cannot take advantage of the world's susceptibility and weakness, by turning its folly to their own personal advantage ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... earth!" he cries, and pulls at his hair, rubs his eyes and stamps on the floor. "Heavens and earth!" This, an edifice built with the patience and cunning of a lover, must ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern

... his disfavor appeared, but in every news article there was in the headline a cunning turn or twist, calculated to arouse prejudice against me. I notice in this morning's issue of the American the same policy is ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... towards you, that you seek, by all the means you may, examining the Count Hollock, or any other party in this matter, to discover and to sift out how this malicious imputation hath been wrought; for we have reason to think that it hath grown out of some cunning device to stay the Earl's coming, and to discourage him from the continuance of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley



Words linked to "Cunning" :   attractive, perspicaciousness, shrewdness, artful, artfulness, astuteness, perspicacity, adroit



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