All 13 Uses
cunning
in
White Fang
(Auto-generated)
- It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces.†
Part 1cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
- He watched his moving muscles and was interested in the cunning mechanism of his fingers.†
Part 1
- He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate fingers being crushed and torn by the white teeth of the she-wolf.†
Part 1
- The life of his body, and of every fibre of his body, the life that was the very substance of his body and that was apart from his own personal life, had yearned toward this light and urged his body toward it in the same way that the cunning chemistry of a plant urges it toward the sun.†
Part 2
- It was he that first learned the trick of rolling a fellowcub over with a cunning paw-stroke.†
Part 2
- He became cunning; he had idle time in which to devote himself to thoughts of trickery.
Part 3 *cunning = clever and deceptive
- Incidentally, the sled went faster, and thus, by cunning indirection, did man increase his mastery over the beasts.†
Part 3cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
- But a still greater cunning lurked in the recesses of the Indian mind.†
Part 3
- They hurled stones, wielded sticks and clubs and whips, administered slaps and clouts, and, when they touched him, were cunning to hurt with pinch and twist and wrench.†
Part 3
- They were soft and helpless, made much noise, and floundered around clumsily trying to accomplish by main strength what he accomplished by dexterity and cunning.†
Part 4
- He knew the hands of the gods, their proved mastery, their cunning to hurt.†
Part 4
- There it came now, the god's hand, cunning to hurt, thrusting out at him, descending upon his head.†
Part 4
- He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cunning, and all the strength had gone out of them.†
Part 5
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.