Definitions for Cunning
ˈkʌn ɪŋcun·ning

Princeton's WordNetRate this definition:2.8 / 5 votes

1. craft, craftiness, cunning, foxiness, guile, slyness, wilinessnoun

   shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception

2. cunningadjective

   crafty artfulness (especially in deception)

3. cunning, cuteadjective

   attractive especially by means of smallness or prettiness or quaintness

   "a cute kid with pigtails"; "a cute little apartment"; "cunning kittens"; "a cunning baby"

4. crafty, cunning, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, sly, tricksy, tricky, wilyadjective

   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 Dick"; "a wily old attorney"

5. clever, cunning, ingeniousadjective

   showing inventiveness and skill

   "a clever gadget"; "the cunning maneuvers leading to his success"; "an ingenious solution to the problem"

Samuel Johnson's DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. CUNNINGadjective

   Etymology: from connan, Sax. konnen, Dut. to know.

   1. Skilful; knowing; well instructed; learned.

   Schoolmasters will I keep within my house,
   Fit to instruct her youth. —— To cunning men
   I will be very kind; and liberal
   To mine own children, in good bringing up. William Shakespeare.

   I do present you with a man of mine,
   Cunning in musick and the mathematicks,
   To instruct her fully in those sciences. William Shakespeare.

   Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing. William Shakespeare, Henry IV. p. i.

   Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and that can skill to cut and to grave. 2 Chron. ii. 7.

   When Pedro does the lute command,
   She guides the cunning artist’s hand. Matthew Prior.

   2. Performed with skill; artful.

   And over them Arachne high did lift
   Her cunning web, and spread her subtile net,
   Enwrapped in foul smoak, and clouds more black than jet. Edmund Spenser, Fairy Queen, b. ii. cant. 7. stan. 28.

   And there beside of marble stone was built
   An altar, carv’d with cunning imagery;
   On which true Christians blood was often spilt,
   And holy martyrs often done to die. Edmund Spenser, Fairy Queen.

   Once put out thy light,
   Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
   I know not where is that Promethean heat
   That can thy light relumine. William Shakespeare, Othello.

   3. Artfully deceitful; sly; designing; trickish; full of fetches and stratagems; subtle; crafty; subdolous.

   Men will leave truth and misery to such as love it; they are resolved to be cunning: let others run the hazard of being sincere. Robert South, Sermons.

   4. Acted with subtilty.

   The more he protested, the more his father thought he dissembled, accounting his integrity to be but a cunning face of falshood. Philip Sidney, b. ii.

2. Cunningnoun

   Etymology: cunninge, Saxon.

   1. Artifice; deceit; slyness; sleight; craft; subtilty; dissimulation; fraudulent dexterity.

   What if I be not so much the poet, as even that miserable subject of his cunning, whereof you speak. Philip Sidney.

   We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom; and certainly there is great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. Francis Bacon, Essay 23.

   These small wares and petty points of cunning are infinite, and it were a good deed to make a list of them; for nothing doth more hurt than that cunning men pass for wise. Francis Bacon.

   2. Art; skill; knowledge.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:4.5 / 2 votes

1. Cunningadjective

   knowing; skillful; dexterous

2. Cunningadjective

   wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious; curious; as, cunning work

3. Cunningadjective

   crafty; sly; artful; designing; deceitful

4. Cunningadjective

   pretty or pleasing; as, a cunning little boy

5. Cunningadjective

   knowledge; art; skill; dexterity

6. Cunningadjective

   the faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft

7. Etymology: [AS. cunnung trial, or Icel. kunnandi knowledge. See Cunning, a.]

WikidataRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Cunning

   Cunning was a Japanese comedy duo from Fukuoka Prefecture. Cunning consisted of the pudgy, short-tempered Takanori Takeyama, and the rail-thin Tadayuki Nakashima. 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.

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Cunning

   kun′ing, adj. knowing: skilful: artful: crafty.—n. knowledge: skill: faculty of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose: artifice.—adv. Cunn′ingly.—n. Cunn′ingness, quality of being cunning: artfulness, slyness. [A.S. cunnan, to know.]

Editors ContributionRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. cunning

   crafty

   
   

   Submitted by raulesparza6634 on September 23, 2019  

Surnames Frequency by Census RecordsRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. CUNNING

   According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Cunning is ranked #29986 in terms of the most common surnames in America.
   
   The Cunning surname appeared 783 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 would have the surname Cunning.
   
   80% or 627 total occurrences were White.
   14.1% or 111 total occurrences were Black.
   3% or 24 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
   1.9% or 15 total occurrences were of two or more races.

Matched Categories

1. • Shrewdness

How to pronounce Cunning?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say Cunning in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of Cunning in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of Cunning in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1

Examples of Cunning in a Sentence

1. Gabriel DiBernardo:

   He has a history, he broke out of jail before. He is a cunning individual, no question about it, and a vicious individual.

2. Francis Bacon:

   Nothing is more damaging to a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

3. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio:

   He's been very cunning about it.

4. Lydia Child:

   None speak of the bravery, the might, or the intellect of Jesus; but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect, political cunning, and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.

5. A. E. Housman:

   In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

References

1. ^ Princeton's WordNet
   http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=Cunning
2. ^ Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
   https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=Cunning
3. ^ Webster Dictionary
   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Cunning
4. ^ Wikidata
   https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=Cunning
5. ^ Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37683/37683-h/37683-h.htm#:~:text=Cunning
6. ^ Surnames Frequency by Census Records
   https://www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/2010_surnames.html