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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



... eye-high, always in the trunk of a stalwart oak, and always they led in the direction in which he was going. The cuts were very deep, and he was quite sure that they had been made by Shif'less Sol, who added to remarkable strength wonderful cunning and mastery in ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... you're done wi' him," the atheist said maliciously. "I ken the ways o' thae ministers preaching for kirks. Oh, they're cunning. You was a' pleased that Mr. Dishart spoke about looms and webs, but, lathies, it was a trick. Ilka ane o' thae young ministers has a sermon about looms for weaving congregations, and a second about beating swords into ploughshares for country places, and another on ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... remarking the contrast between the expression of honest Brinsmead's countenance, as he jogged along on his steady old grey horse, and that of Master Pearson: the one free and open, with a kind smile generally playing over it, and the other strongly marked and coarse, with a cunning look in the eyes, and a constant tendency to ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... and wholesome plans digested by common councils, and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or 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 to themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... that our nature labours under so bitter an aspersion? We have been described as cunning, malicious and treacherous. Other animals herd together for mutual convenience; and their intercourse with their species is for the most part a reciprocation of social feeling and kindness. But community among men, we are told, is that condition ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... Chillicothe the year before, but had been repulsed. Undoubtedly it would now have a still stronger defense and he wondered what could be the plan of Timmendiquas. A border leader, in a land covered with great forests was compelled to guard every moment against the cunning and stratagem of a foe who lived ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse; Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... strains of mysterious fascination. But Spenser was the first to show that he had acquired a command over what had hitherto been heard only in exquisite fragments, passing too soon into roughness and confusion. It would be too much to say that his cunning never fails, that his ear is never dull or off its guard. But when the length and magnitude of the composition are considered, with the restraints imposed by the new nine-line stanza, however convenient it may have been, the vigour, the invention, the volume ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... cried in anger; "you have done this by trickery and cunning. We will not have you to ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... 5. A cunning plot to keep Governor McTavish from acting as he should have done, and to incite the Metis under ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... contended that it was suggested by the well-known quality possessed by snuff, of clearing the head; but this idea is far fetched, not to say absurd. Others will have that the expression was derived from Snofe, or Snoffe, the name of a cunning rogue who flourished about the time of the first crusade; so that "up to Snoffe" signified as clever, or knowing, as Snoffe; and was in process of time converted into "up to snuff." This opinion is deserving of notice; though the only argument in its favour is, that the phrase in question ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh

... remonstrated with and exhorted you, giving you lucid warning. Surely, you are indeed dreaming, and snoring in your dreams!' These multiplied edicts, and the offers of rewards, to 'encourage repentant and fear-stricken hearts,' seem to have led to a little trickery on the part of certain cunning mandarins, if we interpret aright this clause in an ensuing 'lucid warning:' 'The opium-pipes which are delivered up must be distinguished clearly as to whether they are real or false. Those having on the outside of them the marks of use, and within the oily residue of the smoke, are ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... ceilings, the sides of arches, the ribs of groinings—every foot of space, in short—with life and color; and how much more precious is one of those solemn pearly faces than a panel of alabaster or the most cunning mosaic of marbles! In the upper church alone there are twenty-two large frescoes of Cimabue and thirty of Giotto. Over these pours the light from fourteen large colored windows, unimpeded by side-aisles. When the sun ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... he answered coolly. "Pisplykal church heap lot better; smell good, sound good." He paused, then added, with a cunning twinkle in his little dark eyes, "Make heap washee for washee-shop." And, turning on his heel, he marched off towards the kitchen, with the air of a man who ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... said he, good humoredly, 'how can Campbell mistake the matter so much. Poetry goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere cairngorms, wrought up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the market as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch pebbles after all; now Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... to do so," cried John, laughing bitterly, "but what good will it do? They will wind cunning shackles enough round my feet to make me fall to the ground; they will manacle my hands again, and put my will into the strait-jacket of loyalty and obedience. I cannot do what I want to; I am only a tool in the hands of others, and this will cause both my ruin and that ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... over their late supper, in the little room next to the kitchen. The woman had interested the hunchback from the first, and when any one roused his interest he pondered much upon that person's character and ways, and asked questions with considerable cunning. On the other hand, Pina, who was not given to exhibiting much liking for any one, seemed to have taken a fancy to her fellow-servant—either out of pity for his deformity or from natural sympathy. They treated each other with a good ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... do with them?" demanded Ashby in a whisper, his cunning eyes lighting with a fire ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... were doughnuts, sure enough, as Mrs. Marinthy had said, "The biggest I ever see, and the sugariest." No wonder good Mrs. Beebe got up at four o'clock to make them! And a great dish of pink and white sticks and cunning little biscuits with real butter on them, and a cake, with little round candies sprinkled all over the top. Was there ever such a beautiful ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... the Far North is a famous excavator, and his underground home which shelters and protects him from the extreme cold is most spacious. It is a strange fact that these cunning little animals rarely make their homes away from others of their kind. Sometimes twenty to thirty are found in close proximity. And their owners are unquestionably the smartest, keenest, and quickest creatures that roam the wilds. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... right hand forget its cunning, when that name shall fail to awaken generous emotions and aspirations for a higher and worthier manhood! True man and true democrat; faithful always to Liberty, following wherever she led, whether the storm beat in his face or on his back; unhesitatingly counting ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... and they must find us more upon the qui vive next time. I feel ashamed for allowing myself to be such an easy victim to their cunning ruse." ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... they will become sorely destructive of the eggs and nestlings of more desirable birds. I assure you, however, that I make this statement with reluctance and reserve, for the handsome blue-coat is one of our most cunning and interesting birds, and would be greatly missed if ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... inglorious" company of those who have had no chance to become articulate? There among the road-menders, going back and forth all day with a basket of crushed stone upon her head, toils a girl in whose hand God has hidden the cunning of the surgeon. No one suspects her powers, she least of all, and that undeveloped skill will die with her, undiscovered and unapplied. "To ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren

... him yet," thought Aleck, after some few minutes' beating of the cliff-top and slopes had taken place. "Perhaps they won't catch him, after all, for he must be as cunning as a fox about hiding-places. Why, they must be coming here!" he thought, excitedly, as the voices began to come nearer and nearer. "They'll find me, for certain, ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... cunning way of lengthening your days! Be on your guard, my lords. These two are partners in the game and are intimately allied. I have proof of that in my own hands. That youngster takes as good care of the damsel's fortune as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... cunning hand than mine is needed to depict adequately the great soldier-statesman. But this I would say. There has been much foolish talk as to this individual and to that having won the war. That any one person could have won the war is on the face of it an absurdity. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... but if we would give them some tickets to our show they thought they might do something for us. I gladly consented, and in fifteen minutes we crossed that bridge. The cunning rascals had seen our posters and knew we were coming; so they had taken up the planks of the bridge and had hidden them till they had levied upon us for tickets, when the floor was re-laid in a ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... nobles, the whole city rose up in violent opposition. After having exhausted itself in a vain struggle with the viceroy, it resolved to petition the emperor, and commissioned the Prince of Salerno to plead its cause at the Court of Nuremberg. But in consequence of being forestalled by the cunning Don Pedro, the prince, when he arrived, found the case prejudged, and all his arguments and pleadings were of no avail. Disgusted with the failure of his errand, with the coldness of his reception, and with other indignities which he received at the hands of the emperor ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... had already begun to circulate, and D'Antin had been spoken of in his place. I warned his daughter Dreux, the only one of the family to whom it was possible to speak with profit. The mother, with little wit and knowledge of the Court, full of apparent confidence and sham cunning, received all advice ill. The, brothers were imbecile, the son was a child and a simpleton, the two other daughters too light-headed. I had often warned Madame de Dreux of the enmity of the Duchesse de Bourgogne; and she had spoken ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... with word and sign their troth they plighted. Golden was the chain she bade him wear; But the cup he offer'd her she slighted, Silver, wrought with cunning past compare. "That is not for me; All I ask of thee Is one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... brilliant greens and olives and blues and purples—fell under the gaze of that lady's slanting eyes, she sat opposite the Slavonic Jove and smoked her cigarette between sips of coffee. Frequently she smiled. The short powerful hand of the man stroked his beard and he beamed out of his cunning eyes, eyes a trifle too porcine to suggest a keen intellect ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... a glance of triumph, and said to himself: "There he goes!—without horse, without money, without papers. I could not do more—for I was forbidden to do more—I was to act with as much cunning as possible and preserve appearances. Now every one will think this soldier in the wrong. I can at least answer for it, that he will not continue his journey for some days—since such great interests appear to depend on his arrest, and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... most comically plain in the case of the thing called Art, and the people called Art Critics. It is obvious that an attractive landscape or a living face can only half express the holy cunning that has made them what they are. It is equally obvious that a landscape painter expresses only half of the landscape; a portrait painter only half of the person; they are lucky if they express so much. And ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... on his sandals, like the Hermes, perhaps she would be very happy. With winged sandals he might take an occasional flight to the gods. Hermes, of course, was really a rascal, many-sided, and, like most many-sided people and gods, capable of insincerity and even of cunning; but the Hermes of Olympia, their Hermes, was the messenger purged, by Praxiteles of very bit of dross—noble, manly, pure, serene. Little Robin bore at present no resemblance to the Hermes, or indeed—despite the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... a sinister and, brutal face, doubly ominous in the flaring cresset-glare. He knew the man—H'yemba, the cunning ironsmith, one who in other days had before now crossed his will and, dog-like, snarled as much as he had dared. Now a peculiarly malevolent expression lay upon the evil countenance. The dead-white skin wrinkled evilly; the pink eyes gleamed ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... blindly forward by an impulse. When his cunning mind used reason it was never for the purpose of finding truth. It was only for the purpose of confounding his enemies. He never used it as ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... enemies of the gang, and to utter veiled, but quite intelligible, threats. You will say that I was an idiot not to send him packing, and threaten to hand over the whole gang to the police; but I was never a man of strong nerve, and I don't mind admitting that I was mortally afraid of that cunning ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... in the Thirteenth ward a contest which involves so peculiar and important an issue as to merit the widest publicity. It illustrates how the rights guaranteed to women under the new constitution are to be denied them, if cunning and bold chicanery are to be tolerated, by a few ward politicians. At the Republican primary election, held January 20, Mrs. Harriet W. Paist and Mrs. George W. Woelpper were duly nominated as candidates for members ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... MRS. STANTON: Your S.B.A. thinks she is very cunning. As if I did not see a huge pussy under that meal! She has been so modest, humble, ashamed, reluctant, apologetic, contrite, self-accusing whenever the last ten years she has asked me to do anything, go anywhere, speak on any topic! Now she makes you pull the chestnuts ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... may assist in imagination at the eighteen days' forensic baiting of the hapless child (she was but nineteen years of age), whose lucid simplicity broke through the subtle web of theological chicanery which was spun to entrap her by the most cunning of the Sorbonne doctors. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... something about another of the gods. This is Loki, who, though sprung from the race of the giants, yet lived with the sons of Odin in Asgard, behaving sometimes as their trusty helper, but more often as their cunning enemy. He caused much wretchedness, not only among the gods, but on earth also, for he delighted in the sight of misery. His vices were all those most hateful to the Norse people, for he was before all things a liar, a deceiver, a faith-breaker, a skilful ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... very different from civilized people; for they depend more on cunning, stratagem and surprise, than on skill and courage. Almost all their attacks are made under cover of night, or when least expected. A war-party will frequently go a great distance, to fall upon a village ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... these are the touches that make us bow down before the final terrible absolution. And it is the same with Nature. Not to Shakespeare do we go for those pseudo-scientific, pseudo-ethical interpretations, so crafty in their word-painting, so cunning in their rational analysis, which we find in the rest. A few fierce-flung words, from the hot heart of an amorist's lust, and all the smouldering magic of the noon-day woods takes your breath. A sobbing death-dirge from the bosom of a love-lorn child, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... and to whom I gave this very morning a quarter of a dollar. These small loaves of French beet-root sugar sell for two-thirds of a dollar in Ghat. Ouweek arrived to-day from his district, after stopping for the rest of the caravan to get what he could in the way of begging by force. This is the cunning of the old fox bandit. He knows he can beg more effectually from the merchant and trader in the open desert, than at Ghat, where people may refuse, and do refuse to satisfy his importunities. I have done so with the rest. He now pretends he was only playing with me, and that he would have let me ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... negroes with that shrewdness engendered by slavery, in which cunning is the only protection against injury; and strength and courage count for nothing; suggested that so large a party would attract attention, and the safety of the two officers might be endangered. It was therefore finally determined that Ben should act as guide, and the other ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... Pima Scouts! No wonder they took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning—the web of protection Rennie's Pima Scouts had woven in ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a Universe there was even, unconsciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their Governors had fallen out; and, instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... girl alluded to above all but dying, and, of course, rescues her. In the meantime, the nigger calls on Lord Overstone as a foreign prince, is immensely feted, the Duchess of Southernblack and her friend Lady Cunning are invited to meet his Royal Highness; the rescued girl is claimed as a slave by Lord Overstone; philanthropic Jonathan, after some difficulty, succeeds in keeping her, having first ordered Lord Overstone's servants to the right-about with all the swagger of a northern negro-driver. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... on that," Drummond replied, with a cunning look, though Stormont saw he was flattered. "You want some money to begin, but I've a notion how I'm ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... and Pitt, as has been seen, proved impregnable; neither the evil cunning nor the persistent bravery of the savage could dislodge the occupants of those important posts. The siege of Detroit had been abandoned by the combined forces of Pontiac, but the country round about continued to be infested with the hostile Indians, who kept up a sort of petty bushwhacking ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... natives was interspersed with such words as reporters indicate in the newspapers by an expressive black line; and on this "beat," more than on most others, the night police were chosen from men of mighty strength to protect the sober part of the street community, and of notable cunning to persuade the drunken part to retire harmlessly brawling into the seclusion of their ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... She was afraid of three candles in a row, of the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how to seem a highly educated, advanced ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... about!" "Ducks swim on ice!" exclaimed the schoolmaster; and he turned to observe such an unusual spectacle. It was only for an instant; but the apple meanwhile was transferred to the pocket of his cunning pupil. He smiled as he gave him his pen, and said, "Ah, you rogue, you ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books are eagerly welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their eyes fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... not—with perhaps the exception of John Ridd—in his heroes and heroines. The former are drawn with the stronger hand. The maidens are pretty girls, sweet and good and brave for the sake of their fathers, and cunning for their lovers. His young men are gallant and true; but as exemplary love is apt to run smooth, it is not here that the drama finds the necessary amount of difficulty and pain. The interest centres in such delicious ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... dawdled over his cup of muddy coffee he had a curious sense that his mind was intent on keeping at bay some half-formulated fear. He felt pursued, as by an indistinct dream. Yet he was cunning enough to pretend that this something was too illusive to capture outright, so he turned his thoughts to all manner of remote things. But there are times when it is almost as difficult to deceive oneself as to cheat others. In the midst of his thoughts he suddenly realized ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... to be determined here. That it is the history thereof, is surely patent to anyone who will imagine to himself what must have been. In the first place, the strongest and cunningest savage must have had the chance of producing children more strong and cunning than the average; he would have—the strongest savage has still—the power of obtaining a wife, or wives, superior in beauty and in household skill, which involves superiority of intellect; and therefore his children would—some of them at least—be superior to the ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... I would often be filled with uneasiness and some alarm; asking myself what all this could mean, and if it could be the way of martyrs or saints, for I had no courage or liking to be one or the other and was very frightened of suffering. And I think my cunning heart would have liked to take all the sweets and leave the bitter. How well He knew this, and how exquisitely He handled me, never forcing, only looking at me, inviting me with those marvellous perfections of His! How could I possibly resist Him? All the while, ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... the afternoon, and we will be spearing for you, bairns," she said. "They are precious, sir, very precious," she added, turning to the master. "If they are shown the right way, as their father showed it them, they will walk in it; but the deil's a cunning deceiver, and ever ganging about to get hold of young souls as weel as old ones. Ye'll doubtless warn them, and keep ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston

... wits to work with hellish cunning. They wanted to surround Great Britain with a sea of death so full of mines and submarines that no ship could live. The mines were not placed at random, but where they would either kill their victims best or make them try another way where the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... August 14, 1788, quoting from a "gentleman" who had visited this town, says that "the people are all diminutive in size, sickly in appearance, and spend their Sundays in low debauchery," the manufacturers being noted for "a great deal of trick and low cunning as ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... Fakrash, coming forward with his smile of amiable cunning. "If I mistake not," he added, addressing the startled estate agent, who had jumped visibly, "thou art the merchant for whom my son here," and he laid a hand on Horace's shrinking shoulder, "undertook to construct ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... time of the Sultan's going to the mosque, he was afraid he would not come at all to-day; that he had left him with Count Orloff, with whom he was in a towering passion, many angry speeches having passed between the cunning diplomatist and the enraged sovereign. However, soon after, the order to fix bayonets and shoulder arms, both of which were very well executed, announced his approach, and in a few minutes afterwards the band struck up his favourite march. At the head ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... understand] Wasn't it enough? Why didn't you tell me? [With a cunning gleam in her eye] I'll double it: I was intending to double it. Only let me know ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... could not be long sustained. Let him relax for one instant, and his death-blow had come. Relax he must! Flesh and blood could not stand the strain. Already the thrusts were less fierce, the foot less ready, although there was no abatement of the spirit in the steady gray eyes. Tranter, cunning and wary from years of fighting, knew that his chance had come. He brushed aside the frail weapon which was opposed to him, whirled up his great blade, sprang back to get the fairer sweep—and vanished into the waters ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fantastic, supposed to represent the East, and the other a kind of reductio ad absurdum of fashionable garb. The leading man wore a "natty" outing-suit, and strutted with a little cane; his stock-in-trade was a jaunty air, a kind of perpetual flourish, and a wink that suggested the cunning of a satyr. The leading lady changed her costume several times in each act; but it invariably contained the elements of bare arms and bosom and back, and a skirt which did not reach her knees, and bright-coloured ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... lend their horses and their labour to those who were cheating the king. No amount of logic could ever persuade the small farmer that smuggling was in any way immoral, so the coastguard had to combat the cunning of the bold sailors who ran across from Cherbourg, and the still greater cunning of the slouching fellows who signalled his movements from the shore. This was his training, and when the time came for smuggling to be given over entirely to merchant seamen instead of being carried on by ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... was despotic and cunning, but not unkind, and in so far excusable that, let him have done what he might, she could not have got rid of the hatred that plagued him and consumed her. So dissimilar were ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox;[ac] I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... their ways. He has introduced a number of these animals whose points are all distinctly emphasized: a number of persons are shown to be interested in horses, who exhibit their knowledge of and sympathise with the animals, a knowledge and sympathy which is but a reflection of his own. The cunning hand that could so discriminate between shades of humorous characters would not be at a loss to analyse traits of equine nature. There is the cab horse, said to be forty years old and kept in the shafts for two or three weeks at a time, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... the financial legislation of this session, there were some episodes which deserve to be related. Those members, a numerous body, who envied and dreaded Montague readily became the unconscious tools of the cunning malice of Sunderland, whom Montague had refused to defend in Parliament, and who, though detested by the opposition, contrived to exercise some influence over that party through the instrumentality of Charles ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... graveyard showed that the canoes were thickly infested with them. They were a light gray animal, larger than the common gray squirrel, with beautiful bushy tails, which made them strikingly resemble the squirrel, but in cunning and deviltry they were much ahead of that quick-witted rodent. I have known them to empty in one night a keg of spikes in the storehouse in Yamhill, distributing them along the stringers of the building, with ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... man got up in his red cap, And swore he would catch the fox in a trap; But the fox was too cunning, and gave him the slip, And ran through the ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various

... always promptly sent back to the cold charity of the combat again; he learned to play the fiddle, and made a name for himself in that line; he had dwelt among the wild tribes; he had philosophized about the despoilers of the kingdoms of the earth, and found out—the cunning creature —that they refer their differences to the learned for settlement; he had achieved a vast fame as a military chieftain, the Achilles of the Florida campaigns, and then had got him a spelling-book and started ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the other Veto, about Priests, is also like to be eluded; and without much cunning. For Provincial Assemblies, in Calvados as one instance, are proceeding on their own strength to judge and banish Antinational Priests. Or still worse without Provincial Assembly, a desperate People, as at Bourdeaux, can 'hang two of them on the Lanterne,' on the way towards judgment. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... particular complaint in any particular part of his body the jealous lover had merely to stick a pin in that portion of the little brown figure. The ceremony was elaborate, especially in regard to the disposal of that part of the mixture not used to make the figure, for in every case the cunning old women worked on the imaginations of their dupes. There can be no doubt that the morals of the country folk during the eighteenth century were at an exceedingly low ebb. The practice of compelling girls who had misconducted themselves ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... 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

... that tale on his mother's behalf should be left to such another man as Mr. Chaffanbrass? Sir Richard had told his story plainly, but with terrible force; whereas Chaffanbrass had contented himself with brow-beating another lawyer with the lowest quirks of his cunning. Why had not some one been in court able to use the language of passionate truth and ready to thrust the lie down the throats of those who ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... when known, some nations have become unhappy—have contained nothing but a vile heap of slaves, separated from each other, detached from society, which neither procures for them any good, nor secures to them any one advantage. In consequence of the imprudence of some nations, or of the craft, cunning, and violence of those to whom they have confided the power of making laws, and carrying them into execution, their sovereigns have rendered themselves absolute masters of society. These, mistaking the true source of their power, pretended ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... also, did we dig trenches. No, not the same thing as digging trenches anywhere! For it is really nearly as easy to dig trenches in the ocean. For every spadeful you throw out two fall in, and if, by the use of much cunning, you do manage to get a hole dug, then you must not leave it for a single instant, for it is only waiting until your back is turned to disappear. There is one thing—those trenches were good cover, for we would no sooner occupy them than we would be covered up entirely. I ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... as a child of the public, not as a rent-charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public he is in all respects; for while so well able to direct others, how incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself. His simplicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of cunning; his sensibility, to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant as to agonize under the slightest disappointment. Broken ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... advantages this new system presents; they most carefully extend the wax, and thus, without loss of time or labour, construct perfect cells. So long as the event that confronts them appear not a snare devised by some cunning and malicious god, the bees may be trusted always to discover the best, nay, the only human, solution. Let me cite an instance; an event, that, though occurring in nature, is still in itself wholly abnormal. I refer ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... have no disreputable cuckoo, ornithologically speaking, let us not congratulate ourselves too hastily. We have his counterpart in a black sheep of featherdom which vies with his European rival in deeds of cunning and cruelty, and which has not even a song to recommend him—no vocal accomplishment which by the greatest of license could prompt a ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... his opinions[598] with a vehemence contrasting somewhat unfavourably with the patience and humility of Law's reply.[599] As for the Moravians, not Warburton, nor Lavington, nor Stinstra, nor Duncombe, ever used stronger words against 'these most dangerous of the Antinomians—these cunning hunters.'[600] Count Zinzendorf, on the other hand, published a notice that his people had no connection ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... of low cunning and dirty dodges is this kind of man (I mean what we call authors) that very soon after the promulgation of the new law a marked deterioration in the quality of Monomotopan letters was apparent upon ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... improvement work he was doing. But this was to be expected, and the small fortunes they were making at his expense did not irritate him. There was an exception, however. One Simon Dolliver, with money to go in with, and with cunning and courage to back it up, bade fair to become a several times millionaire at Daylight's expense. Dolliver, too, pyramided, playing quickly and accurately, and keeping his money turning over and over. More than once Daylight ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... raised myself Unto this height, and shall I cease to soar? The curious eagles wheel about my path: With sharp and questioning eyes they stare at me, With harsh, impatient screams they menace me, Who, with these vans of cunning workmanship Broad-spread, adventure on their high domain,— Now mine, as well. Henceforth, ye clamorous birds, I claim the azure empire of the air! Henceforth I breast the current of the morn, Between ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... revolutionary pamphlets circulated by the propagandists and agitators I may give here a brief account of one which is well known to the political police. It is entitled Khitraya Mekhanika (Cunning Machinery), and gives a graphic picture of the ideas and methods employed. The mise en scene is extremely simple. Two peasants, Stepan and Andrei, are represented as meeting in a gin-shop and drinking ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... another course. Something gave me insight into his mind, and the power to talk as I have never talked before. All in a flash I saw the man's soul laid bare before me, and—I think I played upon it with some cunning. I don't remember all I said, for I was inspired, but I appealed to his vanity and to his conceit, and as I went along I impressed upon him, over and over, the fact that the world knows we are here and that it trusts him. He aspires to the Presidency; he believes ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... to fact, when it represents the woman as falling, not merely at the same time as the man, but before the man. Only let us remember that it represents the woman as tempted; tempted, seemingly, by a rational being, of lower race, and yet of superior cunning; who must, therefore, have fallen before the woman. Who or what the being was, who is called the Serpent in our translation of Genesis, it is not for me to say. We have absolutely, I think, no facts from ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... one of the most learned, as she was one of the wittiest and best-bred, women of her Age and Country. In the languages, in all manner of fine needlework, in singing and fingering instruments of music, in medicinal botany and the knowledge of diseases, in the making of the most cunning electuaries and syllabubs, and even in Arithmetic,—a science of which young gentlewomen were then almost wholly deficient,—she became, before she was sixteen years of age, a truly wonderful proficient. A Bristol bookseller spoke of printing her book of recipes (containing ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... first word the lawyer had spoken to her. How blind she must have been not to have known it! How grossly stupid not to have understood those asseverations from the girl, that the marriage with her cousin was impossible! Her child had not only deceived her, but had possessed cunning enough to maintain her deception. It must have been going on for at least the last twelvemonth, and she, the while, had been kept in the dark by the manoeuvres of a simple girl! And then she thought of the depth of the degradation ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... last are likely to be overlooked, and escape the observation of the mass of mankind. This is the recognized explanation of the credit given, in spite of reason and evidence, to many classes of impostors; to quack-doctors, and fortune-tellers in all ages; to the "cunning man" of modern times, and the oracles of old. Few have considered the extent to which this fallacy operates in practice, even in the teeth of the most palpable negative evidence. A striking example of it is the faith which the uneducated portion of the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... is, the younger men—must have felt deeply drawn to the elder and repulsed by the younger. A finer young fellow than Peter Fourtenay-Carew never stepped. The other brother was good-looking also, but he was cunning and crafty and little liked. Yet, such are the mysterious ways of Providence, the younger brother, by an unlooked-for turn of events, became the possessor of wealth and place and influence, and the elder went out from his country penniless, exiled, and alone. As far as I can judge, no one in England ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... commercial intercourse with England. But this route was at all times tedious and dangerous, and during a great part of the year it was closed by the ice. In view of these difficulties the Tsars tried to import "cunning foreign artificers," by way of the Baltic; but their efforts were hampered by the Livonian Order, who at that time held the east coast, and who considered, like the Europeans on the coast of Africa at the present day, that the barbarous natives of the interior should not be supplied ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... knew yet, so few years and so cunning, yet believe me she has an itch, but how to make her confess it, for it is a crafty Tit, and plays about you, will not bite home, she would fain, but she dares not; carry your self but so discreetly, Sir, that want or wantonness seem not ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... still young and strong, are paraded before the Thirty-nine. And they generally choose the old men, or, if not, the young men who come from a strange land in the North, where rain falls always when it is not snowing, and whither no native ever returns. If such a man lives in a fine house, and has a cunning cook, then (even though he can paint) he may be admitted among the Forty, or among the Thirty who attain not to the Forty. After that he can take his ease; however ugly his offerings to Beauty, they ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... oats, so long they will be poor,—just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks of the east,—just so long will they do the work and others reap the benefit,—just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich,—just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits of honest toil. When the farmers of the west ship beef and pork instead of grain,—when we manufacture here,—when we cease paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous country in ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... own fame in the eyes of the man whom he had taught to love him, was pleasant to his diseased imagination. It was the natural outcome of the morbid condition of mind into which he had drifted, and he provided for the complete execution of his scheme with cunning born of the mischief working in his brain. It was desirable that the fatal stroke should be dealt at the last possible instant; that he should suddenly unveil his own infamy, and then depart, never to be seen again. To this end he had invented an excuse for returning to the shore at the latest ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... not know that," said Hester. "The most cunning allegory that ever was devised is plain and easy in comparison with the simplest true story,—fully told: and a man is a poet in proportion as he fully tells a simple ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... editor-in-chief was in possession of the precious foot and informed as to the train of intelligent deductions the boy had been led to make, he was divided between the admiration he felt for such detective cunning in a brain of a lad of sixteen years, and delight at being able to exhibit, in the "morgue window" of his paper, the left foot of the ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... Menehune, son of Lua Nuu, etc. It disappeared as a national name so long ago, however, that subsequent legends have changed it to a term of reproach, representing them at times as a separate race, and sometimes as a race of dwarfs, skilful laborers, but artful and cunning." ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... little addition to the strength of the forces that remained, the forces diverted by the insurrection of the malignants in the north, at the King's command or warrant,—all which hath such pregnant presumption of a design carried on to necessitate the kingdom to employ that party, by the cunning politicians of the time, by obstructing the levies, raising the malignants, and then pacifying them by an act of indemnity, and at last openly and avowedly associating with them. Thus the design is accomplished which ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... skill of these compositions makes them a rare piece of decoration; yet even here the friend whom I lately quoted rejects this over-ripe fruit of the Sienese school. The designs are nonsensical, he declares, and all his admiration is for the cunning artisans who have imitated the hatchings and shadings and hair-strokes of the pencil by the finest curves of inserted black stone. But the true romance of handiwork at Siena is to be seen in the wondrous stalls of the choir, under the coloured light of the great wheel-window. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... his full name, was precisely the kind of man one might expect to own and operate the Maggie. Rat-faced, snaggle toothed and furtive, with a low cunning that sometimes passed for great intelligence, Scraggs' character is best described in a homely American word. He was "ornery." A native of San Francisco, he had grown up around the docks and had developed from messboy on a river steamer to master of bay and river ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... stable there was wrought With cunning craft on that invincible targe; And Hercules was turning through the same The deep flow of Alpheius' stream divine, While wondering Nymphs looked down on every hand Upon that mighty work. Elsewhere portrayed Was the Fire-breathing Bull: ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... his race. He could put his finger upon the secret history and private lives of nearly every person in a dozen parishes, but most of all in Bonaventure—for such this long parish was called. He knew to a hair's breadth the social value of every human being in the parish. He was too cunning and acute to be a gossip, but by direct and indirect ways he made every person feel that the Cure and the Lord might forgive their pasts, but he could never forget them, nor wished to do so. For Monsieur Duhamel, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... passed the gate when another boy came shuffling along—a tall, raw-boned lad, with an insinuating smile and shifty, cunning eyes. The ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... was not in this man's nature to do anything openly. Like a mole, he burrowed out his plans under ground, and when forced to brave the daylight, always cunningly allowed some pliant tool to remove the earth that was unavoidably cast up in his passage. His genius lay in that low cunning and prudent management, with which small men of little intellect and no heart sometimes deceive the world. He had long outlived all feelings sufficiently strong to render him impetuous, and was utterly devoid of that generous ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... that Florence could suddenly be different from what she really was to him: a crafty, cunning, cruel, blood-thirsty monster. No, no, the man was lying with infernal cleverness. He put things with a skill amounting to genius, until it was no longer possible to differentiate between the false and the true, or to distinguish ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... world! We wish to step out of the trivial experience into that which is significant. Each day brings uneasiness of soul. "Man's unhappiness," says Carlyle, "as I construe it, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... the cause of the slave, and of playing into the hands of the Whigs. All the editor had ever said about that pro-slavery ex-President was cast into its teeth by Democratic, Liberty Party and Garrisonian papers, which, one and all, held that Van Buren was a cunning old fox, as pro-slavery as in those days when, as President of the U.S. Senate, he gave his casting vote for the bill which authorized every Southern post-master to open all the mail which came to his office, search for and destroy any matter that he might think dangerous ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... of each other's plans, and gloried in their defiance of both man and God. Deep in their hearts they cherished tenderness for woman, sympathy for the weak and the afflicted, and generosity indescribable. And yet they prided themselves upon their barbaric rusticity, glorying in a native cunning bred of their wild life and sharpened in the struggle for existence. What, after all, is 'The Jumping Frog' but the elaborate narrative, in native vernacular, of a shrewd practical joke? As Mark Twain first heard it, this story was a solemn recital of an interesting incident in the ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... Orangemen in Belfast as (apparently) bent on promoting animosity, and on convincing us that they will rather rush into civil war than endure a Parliament in Dublin supreme over all Ireland: but however much this may be suspected as the bluster and cunning of a minority in Ulster, to ignore it totally may be unjust as well as unwise. And besides, I think that Ireland needs the practice of Local Government, varying locally, before that of a Central Irish Parliament. This forbids my desiring ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... circumstances, who had brought on her dishonour, and reduced her to the verge of destruction, were by no means the fit instruments of her delivery and redemption. The whole kingdom caught fire at the late changes; nor could the power, the cunning, and the artifice of a faction, long support itself against the united voice of Great Britain, which soon pierced the ears of the sovereign. It was not possible to persuade the people that salutary measures could be suggested or pursued, except by the few, whose zeal for the honour of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... mocks at youth and love and glory, Chivalry slinks behind his loaded mines, With meaner murderous lips War tells her story, And round her cunning brows ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... He is not as yet entirely at home in the White House and rather clings to my companionship. I think he will soon be fond of Archie, who loves him dearly. Mother is kind to Skip, but she does not think he is an aristocrat as Jack is. He is a very cunning ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... handsome, and has any share of cunning, the apprentice or her master's son is enticed away and ruined by her. Thus many good families are impoverished and disgraced by these pert sluts, who, taking the advantage of a young man's simplicity and unruly desires, draw many ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... Galilean. It is a much more serious business than was at first thought. I should like to know how Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea will get out of it; the High Priests have mistrusted them for some time; they made common cause with Lazarus: but they are extremely cunning. All will now, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... immense school, as if for the promotion of this very purpose; where they all teach by a competition in learning; where the rude faculty which is not expanded into intelligence is, however, sharpened into cunning; where the spirit which cannot grow into an eagle, may take the form and action of a snake. This advantage,—that there should not be a diminution of the superabundant plenty of associates always at hand, to assist each man in making the most of his native intellect for its least worthy use,—has ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... chained him most of the time. Soon would come an echo from the frontier, telling of quick, sharp struggle; victorious boarding and a Federal gunboat or two given to the flames. I have already alluded to his dashing raid upon the fishery fleet; but his cunning capture of the gunboats in the Rappahannock, or his cool and daring attack on the "Underwriter," during Pickett's movement on Newberne, would alone ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... including table-rapping, spirit-rapping, most of which have been used in connection with medicine. I do not maintain that all of these are mere vagaries, empty shadows, without the least reality, mere ghosts and hobgoblins, mere phantoms of the heat-oppressed brain, or cunning devices of impostors to deceive a gullible crowd of the ignorant public. Yet most of these are such beyond a doubt, and as such are totally ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... to this sentence. He pondered over it for a moment, and then remembered that Hill had applied the same phrase to his wife. Evidently there had been collusion, a comparing of tales beforehand. The woman had been tutored by her cunning scoundrel of a husband, but undoubtedly her ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... a Story to be told! And I, whose Back is crooked as the Harp I still keep tuning through the Night till Day! That Harp untun'd by Time—the Harper's hand Shaking with Age—how shall the Harper's hand Repair its cunning, and the sweet old Harp Be modulated as of old? Methinks 'Tis time to break and cast it in the Fire; Yea, sweet the Harp that can be sweet no more, To cast it in the Fire—the vain old Harp That can no more sound Sweetness to the ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... work at once. New joists were inserted in the old walls, boarded over, and covered, after the advice of Mortimer, with some cunning mixture to keep out the water. Then a pipe was put through the wall to carry it off—which pipe, if it was not masked with an awful head, as the remains of more than one on the Priory showed it would ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... of twenty millions of people. This occupation of African territory led to the war in which the celebrated Arab chieftain, Abd-el-Kader, was the hero. He was both priest and warrior, enjoying the unlimited confidence of his countrymen; and by his cunning and knowledge of the country he succeeded in maintaining himself for several years against the French generals. His stronghold was Constantine, which was taken by storm in October, 1837, by General Vallee. Still, the Arab chieftain found means to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... of the whole; And near it the anchor, whose giant hand Would reach down and grapple with the land, And immovable and fast Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast! And at the bows an image stood, By a cunning artist carved in wood, With robes of white, that far behind Seemed to be fluttering in the wind. It was not shaped in a classic mould, Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old, Or Naiad rising from the water, But modelled from the Master's daughter! On many a dreary and misty night, 'T ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... fights against Apache or Blackfoot the rules of strategy and tactics were of small account. The soldier was constrained to acknowledge the brave and the trapper as his teachers; and Moltke himself, with all his lore, would have been utterly baffled by the cunning of the Indian. Before the war of 1845-6 the strength of the regular army was not more than 8500 men; and the whole of this force, with the exception of a few batteries, was scattered in small detachments along the frontier. The troops were never ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... some cunning necromancer Had drawn a circle magically round me, Till like the wretched victim ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... the cunning tempter's art, And teach the race its duty, By keeping on its wicked heart Their eyes of ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... for Chunerbutty and took counsel with him, as being more conversant with European ways. And the result was a cunning and elaborate plot, such as from its very tortuousness and complexity would appeal to ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... as they call him, was a sturdy fellow till he got a fall against the mouth of a furnace, and lay ten months in Saint Bartholomew's Spital, scarce moving hand or foot. He cannot wield a hammer, but he has a cunning hand for gilding, and coloured devices, and is as good as Garter-king-at-arms himself for all bearings of knights ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... deeply concerns you and your people as well as us. It was his desire, therefore, that you share with us the toils and dangers of this expedition, by sending some of your young men along with us, to guide us through the wilderness where there is no path, and be our safeguard against the wiles of cunning and evil-minded men we may chance to meet by the way. This he will look upon as a still further proof of the love and friendship you bear your brothers, the English. As a pledge of his faith in all this, and as a token of his love for his red brother, he ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... tanned, boyish face. His hands and feet were small and shapely as those of a girl. About him hung the stolid imperturbability of the Southern mountaineer. Times were when his blue eyes melted to tenderness or mirth; yet again the cunning of the jungle narrowed them to slits hard, as jade. Already, at the age of fourteen, he had been shot at from ambush, had wounded a Roush at long range, had taken part in a pitched battle. The law of the feud was tempering his heart ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... fairies, who brought her ribbons and partridge-feathers, and other simple adornments with which she contrived to set off her simple costume, so as to produce those effects which an eye for color and cunning fingers can bring out of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various



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



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