All 8 Uses
cunning
in
Grendel
(Auto-generated)
- They would listen to each other at the meadhall tables, their pinched, cunning rats' faces picking like needles at the boaster's words, the warfalcons gazing down, black, from the rafters, and when one of them finished his raving threats, another would stand up and lift up his ram's horn, or draw his sword, or sometimes both if he was very drunk, and he'd tell them what he planned to do.†
Chpt 3cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
- He told how Scyld by the cunning of arms had rebuilt the old Danish kingdom from ashes, lordless a long time before he came, and the prey of every passing band, and how Scyld's son by the strength of his wits had increased their power, a man who fully understood men's need, from lust to love, and knew how to use it to fashion a mile-wide fist of chain-locked steel.†
Chpt 3
- Yet he, the old Shaper, might make it true, by the sweetness of his harp, his cunning trickery.†
Chpt 4
- As they did too, though vicious animals, cunning, cracked with theories.†
Chpt 4
- "Ah, man's cunning mind!" he said, and cackled.†
Chpt 5
- He got a cunning look, as if getting ready to offer a deal—the look men have when they fight with men instead of poor stupid animals.
Chpt 6 *cunning = clever and deceptive
- He throws himself at me, or he cunningly sneaks up behind, sometimes in disguise—a goat, a dog, a sickly old woman—and I roll on the floor with laughter.†
Chpt 6cunningly = in a manner that is clever and typically that includes tricking others
- The watchful mind lies, cunning and swift, about the dark blood's lust, lies and lies and lies until, weary of talk, the watchman sleeps.†
Chpt 11cunning = 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.