All 5 Uses
cunning
in
The Shining
(Auto-generated)
- Daddy, sobered up some (or perhaps only with the stupid cunning of any hardpressed animal), told the doctor she had fallen downstairs.†
Chpt 4 *cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
- Originally conceived as a bright boy more cursed with money than blessed with it, a boy who wanted more than anything to compile a good record so he could go to a good university because he had earned admission and not because his father had pulled strings, he had become to Jack a kind of simpering Goody Two-shoes, a postulant before the altar of knowledge rather than a sincere acolyte, an outward paragon of Boy Scout virtues, inwardly cynical, filled not with real brilliance (as he had first been conceived) but only with sly animal cunning.†
Chpt 4
- Who was now faced with ruin over this handsome, innocent-seeming rich boy who had cheated on his Final Composition and had then cunningly covered his tracks.†
Chpt 4cunningly = in a manner that is clever and typically that includes tricking others
- And still he could see the hammer rising and falling as the clockwork continued to turn and the cogs continued to mesh the gears and teeth of this cunningly made machine.†
Chpt 5
- There was an expression of lunatic cunning in them.†
Chpt 5cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
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.