cannyadj.adv.

1581 [implied in: N. Burne Disput. Headdis of Relig. xviii. f. 62^v Frere Martine Lauter..passed mair cannelie to vorke. (at cannily adv.)].

1596 J. Dalrymple tr. J. Leslie Hist. Scotl. (1888) I. 108 [He] quha appeiris to be enduet w^t the best jugement, and to haue the counsel maist cunning, cumlie, and cannie.

1637 S. Rutherford Lett. (1863) I. lxxxiii. 212 Men's canny wisdom, who, in this storm, take the nearest shore and go to the lee and calm side of the Gospel.

1645 R. Baillie Let. 8 July (1841) II. 296 The Parliament is wyse to make, in a canny and safe way, a wholsome purgation.

1699 Proper Project for Scotl. 77 Is there none to..quench the Fire of Gods wrath..which will laugh at, and burn up all our Carnal Policys, Canny Prudence, and basely overstreached and wrested Moderation?

a1758 A. Ramsay Poems (1800) II. 256 Ye gales that..please the canny boatman.

1901 Recreation May 285/1 Behind his topaz blinkers resides a canny intellect and the power of seeing things which neither you nor I perceive or understand.

1980 J. Michener Covenant 704 He was..bewildered by the flood of ideas that had been coming at him from his own observations, the canny wisdom of his father and the lessons from the serious books.

2016 D. Kaufman Some Enchanted Evenings 269 Tuft's canny intelligence and compassionate humor inform many of her letters.

1725 A. Ramsay Gentle Shepherd i. ii Whate'er he wins, I'll guide with canny care.

c1800 Maxim ‘Be canny with the sugar!’

1866 W. D. Howells Venetian Life 267 The number..and cost of the dishes were carefully regulated by the canny Republic's laws.

1872 Spectator 7 Sept. 1129 A businesslike, thrifty, canny, constitutional government.

1921 Good Furnit. Mag. Aug. 65/2 Perhaps the reason is the same that makes the Scotch such a canny, thrifty folk. If they dinna spend it, they hae it.

1981 Bk. Digest Mar. 145 These canny individuals were actually aware..that every dollar retained and not paid out in taxes would continue to multiply if properly invested.

2010 A. Urquhart Forgotten Highlander 270 No frugal and canny Scot was telling these starving boys to watch what they ate.

1816 W. Scott Antiquary III. ix. 192 ‘If ye'll let me hear the question,’ said Edie, with the caution of a canny Scotchman, ‘I'll tell you whether I'll answer it or no.’

1859 C. M. Yonge Cameos lii, in Monthly Packet Aug. 120 Starving out the English, as the canny Scot had so often done.

1878 M. L. Holbrook Hygiene Brain 53 As they say in canny Scotland.

1913 L. V. Kelly Range Men 71 Canny men and good traders, built posts in the great inland.

1954 A. Seton Katherine ii. xii. 211 Jankin was..canny enough to haggle with fishermen at the dock.

1987 P. Wright & P. Greengrass Spycatcher vi. 73 In fact, the intelligence gathered was worthless. Khrushchev was far too canny a bird to discuss anything of value in a hotel room.

2017 Liverpool Echo (Nexis) 15 June 11 His business acumen is second to none. He is, indeed, a canny Scot.

1592 D. Forster Let. 9 Dec. in D. Calderwood Hist. Kirk of Scotl. (1844) V. 204 Muche better is it to have abiddin a cannie mercat, nor to have hazarded an old gloyd, which might have stammered, and putt him in hazard.

1718 A. Ramsay Christ's-kirk on Green iii. 25 Word gae'd, she was na kanny.

1795 J. Sinclair Statist. Acct. Scotl. XVI. 122 This is done with a view to prevent skaith, if it should happen that the person is not cany.

1829 W. Scott Lett. Demonol. v. 161 Which are not supposed to be themselves altogether canny, or safe to have concern with.

1876 S. R. Whitehead Daft Davie 270 Her that was now so quiet and pensy to try such a wild kind o' freit seemed to strike us all as something no canny.

1906 N. Munro Malingerer in Vital Spark iii. 15 ‘A wife's the very thing for you,’ he would urge; ‘it's no' canny, a man as delicate as you to be having nobody to depend on.’

1934 ‘L. G. Gibbon’ Grey Granite ii. 87 Och, this Communism stuff's not canny, I tell you, it's just a religion though the Reds say it's not and make out that they don't believe in God.

1969 G. Friel Grace & Miss Partridge ii. 23 There's naebody mair aware nor me about the dangers of Roming Catholic fallacies. But I must say I still canny agree with this idea of predestination. It's no canny.

2006 J. Robertson Test. Gideon Mack (2007) xliv. 350 He was polite enough,..but there was something no canny aboot him.

a1665 W. Guthrie Heads of Serm. preached at Finnick (1680) 57 In truth that was a canny gate that they took, for..they took the ready way and the shortest cut, that was an happy luck.

1688 in H. Paton Reg. Privy Council Scotl. (1932) 3rd Ser. XIII. 247 You said they had not prayed soe much till they sau your cannie face.

1715 A. Pennecuik Curious Coll. Scotish Poems in Geogr., Hist. Descr. Tweeddale App. 62 Farewel old Calins, Kannie all thy Life.

1720 A. Ramsay Poems 360 Whaever by his kanny Fate Is Master of a good Estate.

1822 J. Galt Provost 118 I, however, took a canny opportunity of remarking to old Mr Dinledoup, the English teacher, that this castle-building scheme of an academy would cause great changes.

1900 H. Maxwell Chevalier of Splendid Crest x. 144 By the rood but it was a canny chance, for had this gentleman been later on the scene by the saying of a paternoster, you and I would have fed the scald crows, my master.

2015 Christian Sci. Monitor (Nexis) 3 Aug. Sometimes there are days of boring chop. And sometimes, by canny luck and skill, they [sc. surfers] catch a transcendent wave.

1643 Pindar of Wakefield sig. A2 I was sare flade thou wert gane from the canny City of London to leuke abrade for better warke, whilke I trow will be far warse than to stay at hame.

1726 in R. Fleming Fulfilling Script. (ed. 5) sig. *a2 (Table Sc. Phr.) Canny, good humored.

1795 J. Sinclair Statist. Acct. Scotl. XIV. 429 The word canny is much in use here, as well as on the other side the border, and denotes praise. A canny person, or thing; a good sort of person.

1802 D. Wordsworth Grasmere Jrnls. 27 Jan. (1991) 59 I was surprized to see the youngest child amongst the rest of them running about by itself with a canny round fat face, & rosy cheeks.

1821 A. Wheeler Westmorland Dial. (ed. 3) 99 Saa yee awt else et wur conny while yee stayd?

1875 F. K. Robinson Gloss. Words Whitby Conny, seemly: ‘she's conny beeath to feeace an te follow.’

1888 L. A. Smith Music of Waters 107 The local song of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, ‘The Keel Row’..is truly the national anthem of the ‘Canny Toon’.

1918 I. Gurney Let. 22 Apr. (1991) 423 Which does not brighten canny Newcassel.

1976 Observer 22 Aug. 5 (advt.) Wor lad's havvin a canny taime doon L'ndn on hes honymune.

1992 G. M. Fraser Quartered Safe out Here 53 The ritual was complete when Grandarse had sipped, appraised, and exclaimed, ‘Eh, Christ, thoo brews a canny cup, Jock!’

2001 C. Glazebrook Madolescents xx. 175 Don't get the wrong idea, you're dead canny. It's just that I've thought about it a bit and I'd rather we didn't, you know—shag.

1805 R. Anderson Ballads in Cumberland Dial. 30 Tom Linton was bworn till a brave canny fortune.

1868 J. C. Atkinson Gloss. Cleveland Dial. 116 That farm cost a conny lot o' brass.

1871 J. Richardson Cummerland Talk (1886) 1st Ser. 12 We pestit on a canny while.

1928 A. E. Pease Dict. Dial. N. Riding Yorks. 95/2 Ah wez wiv her a canny piece afore she said owt.

1953 Sunday Times 27 Oct. It goes a canny distance, sir, on only a canny bit of petrol.

2007 Independent 1 June 20/4 As a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a ‘canny load of chink.’

1762 J. Brown Let. 3 Nov. in T. L. Kington-Oliphant Jacobite Lairds Gask (1870) (modernized text) 331 In the mean time let him sit straight and turn in his toes, and if the horse is canny, trotting up & down without stirops will give him a firm seat.

1786 R. Burns Poems & Songs (1968) I. 166 Hamely, tawie, quiet and cannie.

1814 W. Scott Waverley III. xiii. 171 The plaids [sc. Highlanders] were gay canny, and did not do so much mischief. View more context for this quotation

1820 R. Mudie Glenfergus II. xxiii. 341 The canniest hand about a sick bed.

1861 E. B. Ramsay Reminisc. Sc. Life (ed. 18) v. 125 Mounted upon a Highland pony as being the canniest baste.

1911 Anthropol. Papers Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 9 108 The man made the bear then because he was nice and quiet and canny.

1928 A. E. Pease Dict. Dial. N. Riding Yorks. 19/2 Be canny wi' t'aud meer.

2009 M. Stewart Dae yeh mind thon Time? (Electronic ed.) This Alsatian must have been the canniest animal alive, for I can remember running around the back green holding on to his tail and him belting around like an idiot, but seldom did he snap.

1874 J. R. Green Short Hist. Eng. People viii. §2. 464 His canny humour lights up the political and theological controversies of the time.

1921 Overland Monthly Aug. 40 He has a homely wisdom of his own and a canny sense of humor and a power of language that is surprising.

2013 Toronto Star (Nexis) 5 May e2 Even Bob Dylan's ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ was delivered with a portentous gravitas that totally missed the canny sense of humour at work in the original.

1786 R. Burns Poems 34 Speak her fair, An' straik her canny wi' the hair.

1804 W. Tarras Poems 82 The troddlin burnie i' the glen Glides cannie o'er its peebles sma'.

1816 W. Scott Antiquary I. vii. 162 Canny now, lad—canny now—tak tent and tak time.

1895 Badminton Mag. Nov. 525 We stoop a little and go canny through the ‘bealloch’ or pass at the top.

1945 S. O' Casey Drums Under Windows in Autobiogr. (1980) I. 442 The living children need this money more than the dead father. I'd go canny with it if I were you.

1985 C. Rush Twelvemonth & Day ii. 44 ‘Lay it on canny, for pity's sake,’ said my grandfather. ‘It'll take his skin off like that.’

2012 J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) xix. 208 You're not at that bit yet. Go canny, ay; now, turn around tae face each other.

1814 C. I. Johnstone Saxon & Gaël III. 73 ‘Chaps like them suld ca' canny.’

1823 J. Galt Entail I. xxvii. 239 But, Charlie and Bell, ca' canny.

1868 Fraser's Mag. Aug. 179/1 Now, gudewife and the lave of you women,..you'll just call canny and you'll call no names.

1907 ‘Artifex’ & ‘Opifex’ Causes of Decay in Brit. Industry iv. 64 A diminishing output is a great temptation to workmen to work slowly, or ‘call canny’.

1962 Times 28 Apr. 9/5 They had better ca' canny.

2008 J. Kelman Kieron Smith, Boy (2009) 390 Some were real fighters and ye could spot them a mile away, so then ye had to caw canny.