cunning

«cunning» in Mova's early modern english dictionary: skilful, clever, sly — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

kind

archaic sense

modern equivalent

skilful, clever, sly

part of speech

adjective

meaning for a pupil

Clever with the hands or mind, or clever at tricking people. tree →

how it differs from today

Today it means sly or tricky. In the first sentence it means skilful at hunting, which is the old sense.

examples

• And the boys grew; and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. (Torah GEN.25.27, JPS 1917) tree →
• “He is very old and very cunning. (The Jungle Book) tree →
• Then he tried to get out by cunning. (The Arabian Nights Entertainments) tree →

primary record

cunning

tests

manual 10.3; corpora 159 (Torah 1, tales 158, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 0; ratio 18.0 (Torah alone 2.3); Wiktionary no archaic label

In the corpora

• The captain of fifty, and the man of rank, and the counsellor, and the cunning charmer, and the skilful enchanter.
• Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers, or of the most cunning binder of spells.
• If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cunning» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.