All 3 Uses of
cunning
in
All Quiet on the Western Front
- …and finally Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs.
p. 3.9cunning = being good at achieving goals through cleverness
- His sharp, mousy features began to shine, his eyes grew small with cunning, his jaws twitched, and he whispered hoarsely: "Man! then you've got bread for one hundred and fifty men too, eh?"
p. 4.8cunning = cleverness and deception
- Our peasants are hard and cunning when they bargain.
p. 191.9 *cunning = clever and deceptive
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cunning as in: a cunning thief) being good at achieving goals through cleverness -- and typically through deception as well (tricking others)
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
At one time, cunning was also used as a synonym for cute.