skill employed in a shrewd or sly manner, as in deceiving; craftiness; guile.
adeptness in performance; dexterity: The weaver's hand lost its cunning.
adjective
showing or made with ingenuity.
artfully subtle or shrewd; crafty; sly.
Informal. charmingly cute or appealing: a cunning little baby.
Archaic. skillful; expert.
verb
Obsolete. present participle of can1.
Origin of cunning
1275–1325; (noun) Middle English; Old English cunnung, equivalent to cunn(an) to know (see can1) + -ung-ing1; (adj., v.) Middle English, present participle of cunnan to know (see can1, -ing2)
1. Cunning,artifice,craft imply an inclination toward deceit, slyness, and trickery. Cunning implies a shrewd, often instinctive skill in concealing or disguising the real purposes of one's actions: not intelligence but a low kind of cunning. An artifice is a clever, unscrupulous ruse, used to mislead others: a successful artifice to conceal one's motives.Craft suggests underhand methods and the use of deceptive devices and tricks to attain one's ends: craft and deceitfulness in every act.
What’s Another Word For “Cute”?Puppies are undeniably cute, as are toddlers, bunnies, and Baby Yoda. Beyond that, however, cute just doesn’t always cut it.