All 15 Uses
cunning
in
The Idiot
(Auto-generated)
- Finally, Totski took cunning means to try to break his chains and be free.†
Chpt 1.4cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
- What am I to do with your IOU's, you cunning, unscrupulous rogue?†
Chpt 1.12
- Madame Filisoff was a little woman of forty, with a cunning face, and crafty, piercing eyes.†
Chpt 2.5
- Then a smile of cunning—almost triumph—crossed his lips.†
Chpt 3.5
- You know he deceived us last night, the cunning rascal.†
Chpt 3.9
- There was a look of cunning in his eyes, however.†
Chpt 3.9
- You remember, perhaps, that you were in full possession of your reason during this succession of fantastic images; even that you acted with extraordinary logic and cunning while surrounded by murderers who hid their intentions and made great demonstrations of friendship, while waiting for an opportunity to cut your throat.†
Chpt 3.10
- One of the murderers suddenly changed into a woman before your very eyes; then the woman was transformed into a hideous, cunning little dwarf; and you believed it, and accepted it all almost as a matter of course—while at the same time your intelligence seemed unusually keen, and accomplished miracles of cunning, sagacity, and logic!†
Chpt 3.10
- One of the murderers suddenly changed into a woman before your very eyes; then the woman was transformed into a hideous, cunning little dwarf; and you believed it, and accepted it all almost as a matter of course—while at the same time your intelligence seemed unusually keen, and accomplished miracles of cunning, sagacity, and logic!†
Chpt 3.10
- Why, you have no idea what a cunning little animal he is; dirty little gossip!†
Chpt 4.1
- He has grown so cunning and careful, and weighs his words so deliberately; he spoke to me about that Kapiton fellow with an object, you know!†
Chpt 4.2 *
- Don't try to be too cunning with me, young man!" shouted Gania.†
Chpt 4.2
- It was true enough that he was sometimes naive to a degree in his curiosity; but he was also an excessively cunning gentleman, and the prince was almost converting him into an enemy by his repeated rebuffs.†
Chpt 4.3
- "There is much that might be improved in him," said the prince, moderately, "but he has some qualities which—though amid them one cannot but discern a cunning nature—reveal what is often a diverting intellect."†
Chpt 4.4
- I told him, and told them at my mother's too, that I was off to Pavlofsk," said Rogojin, with a cunning and almost satisfied smile.†
Chpt 4.11
Definitions:
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(1)
(cunning as in: a cunning thief) being good at achieving goals through cleverness -- and typically through deception as well (tricking others)
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) At one time, cunning was also used as a synonym for cute.