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   cunning

   /ˈkʌnɪŋ/

   adjective

   • 1. having or showing skill in achieving one's ends by deceit or evasion: "a cunning look came into his eyes"
   • ▪ ingenious: "plants have evolved cunning defences"
   • 2. attractive or quaint: North American "Baby will look too cunning for anything in that pink print"

   noun

   • 1. skill in achieving one's ends by deceit: "a statesman to whom cunning had come as second nature"
   • ▪ ingenuity: "what resources of energy and cunning it took just to survive"

   Word Origin Middle English: perhaps from Old Norse kunnandi ‘knowledge’, from kunna ‘know’ (related to can1), or perhaps from Middle English cunne, an obsolete variant of can1. The original sense was ‘(possessing) erudition or skill’ and had no implication of deceit; the sense ‘deceitfulness’ dates from late Middle English.

   Derivatives

   • 1. cunningness noun

   Scrabble Points: 10

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     1

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