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cunning
in a sentence

cunning as in:  a cunning thief

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • The woman's eyes were fastened on her face with a cunning triumph.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • She's known to be exceedingly pushy, egotistical, cunning, calculating and perpetually dissatisfied.   (source)
    cunning = clever and deceptive
  • 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.   (source)
  • And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies' plan.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness and deceit
  • If he was still following, he was very wary and cunning.   (source)
    cunning = clever and deceptive
  • Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.   (source)
  • He gave thanks to the gods for the cunning and strength that had caused him to defeat such an adversary.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • The tunnel was an example of his skill and cunning.   (source)
  • She obviously had a practical cunning which Winston lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaustive knowledge of the countryside round London, stored away from innumerable community hikes.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness and ability to deceive
  • He's twice as cunning as any one sane can be.   (source)
    cunning = clever and deceptive
  • Our peasants are hard and cunning when they bargain.   (source)
  • I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually cunning.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness and deceptive
  • For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for John Thornton that he lost his head.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and we lost,   (source)
    cunning = clever and deceptive
  • All the Jungle-People admire us for our skill and our cunning.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • You perceive the devilish cunning of it, for really it would be almost impossible to make a case against the real murderer.   (source)
  • between you, you will have cunning as well as valour!   (source)
  • My conclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as I have already said, but instincts; and yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his character been put together that there was no painful perception of deficiency, but, on my part, an entire contentment with what I found in him.   (source)
    cunningly = cleverly
  • "I'll be judge, I'll be jury," Said cunning old Fury:   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • Everyone has distinguished themselves either by strength or deadliness or cunning.†   (source)
  • Voldemort might be a ruin of his former self, but he was still terrifying, still cunning, still determined to regain power.†   (source)
  • His eyes were getting smaller, or the flesh around them was moving in, which gave him a cunning expression.†   (source)
  • Is treacherous and cunning, is ruthless, is cruel.†   (source)
  • There was always someone who was cunning and connected, who worked the system and found you things, someone around whom the air buzzed with both opportunity and danger-It was Salim who had sent out Tariq's queries about his mother, Salim who had sat him down and told him, in a soft, fatherly voice, that she had died of exposure.†   (source)
  • The information coming from Collet out of Château Villette suggested that Teabing's cunning ran so deep that Fache himself might even learn from it.†   (source)
  • Opening them involves a cunning series of steps: find a seam with your fingernails, slide the bottom to the right, detach a side rail, remove a hidden key from inside the rail, unlock the top, and discover a bracelet inside.†   (source)
  • And a mightily powerful and cunning one at that?†   (source)
  • She would remember, of course, those charmless bumper stickers from the Vietnam era—those cunning American flags and the red, white, and blue lettering of the name of our beloved nation.†   (source)
  • The cats had long conversations with one another, they wore cunning little clothes and lived in a warm house beneath a kitchen stove.†   (source)
  • He would need the touch of a surgeon, the alertness of an owl, the cunning of three foxes, and the foresight of a grand master in chess.†   (source)
  • What a cunning liar you are!†   (source)
  • You're a cunning man, Tyrion.†   (source)
  • Their faces are curious, cunning, cruel—and behind every false smile is a reminder; they are watching.†   (source)
  • The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come.†   (source)
  • He's very cunning, Sticky.†   (source)
  • This was why he had to survive, and use his cunning to stay off the main roads where the circling dive-bombers waited like raptors.†   (source)
  • And the smell of a cunning Englishman ghost, sickled to a rubber tree, asking courteously for a cigar.†   (source)
  • I will empty you of grief and guilt and self-pity and fill you up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance.†   (source)
  • Cunningly deployed lighting and mirrors created the illusion of standing in a conservatory overlooking a wide stretch of exquisitely manicured garden.†   (source)
  • The cunning little ...He must have rebooted the system.†   (source)
  • Enrique guesses there are more than two hundred migrants on board, a tiny army of them who charged out of the cemetery with nothing but their cunning.†   (source)
  • How many men would draw their swords if they knew a giant fire-breathing lizard-one with more natural cunning and wisdom than even a king could hope for-would soon be there to stop the violence?†   (source)
  • For instance, a book that began with the sentence "Once upon a time there was a family of cunning little chipmunks who lived in a hollow tree" would probably contain a story full of talking animals who get into all sorts of mischief.†   (source)
  • But he would have to be clever, cunning.†   (source)
  • And then this amazingly cunning burglar stole just one book, although there are books worth millions in your library, and they took this girl's father away after he'd offered to go with them in any case?†   (source)
  • He had all the low cunning of his class.†   (source)
  • "I think a mistake the Dauntless make is refusing to be cunning," I say.†   (source)
  • The sygaldry is quite cunning.†   (source)
  • He is many things dangerous and devious, cunning and deadly, a good friend and an implacable enemy but he comes from an age when a man's word was indeed precious.†   (source)
  • It took a thousand cunning forms.†   (source)
  • Daddy, sobered up some (or perhaps only with the stupid cunning of any hardpressed animal), told the doctor she had fallen downstairs.†   (source)
  • Outside Midgard was the kingdom of Utgard, the domain of the treacherous giants, who resorted to all kinds of cunning tricks to try and destroy the world.†   (source)
  • He was staring at me over his drawn-up knees, his hair disheveled, his mouth slack and without cunning.†   (source)
  • Festus would hire the best, most cunning men, experts in tracking their prey.†   (source)
  • Jacob's more cunning than I gave him credit for.†   (source)
  • She also had hallucinations, imagining that they were walking down the halls on tiptoe—tiny, cunning, furtive gnomes.†   (source)
  • Over and over during training, we were told never to be complacent, reminded constantly of the sheer cunning and unpredictability of our terrorist enemy, of the necessity for total vigilance at all times, of the endless need to watch out for our teammates.†   (source)
  • For as long as she could remember, she was regarded as cunning and unjustifiably violent.†   (source)
  • I don't think anyone else could see the glint of cunning in his eyes, but I know him so well.†   (source)
  • I am here to walk the sand, to lure a maker and mount him by my own cunning that I may be a Fremen entire.†   (source)
  • His smile was a little too cunning for comfort.†   (source)
  • It shares his strength, cunning ...and his evil nature.†   (source)
  • Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.†   (source)
  • But he'd already learned cunning: he ate the contents of his food packages alone, sometimes during the night.†   (source)
  • They became secretive, shift y, appeared to withhold the latest and worst news from others; appeared to blend a cunning with their haste, tried to hurry out before someone questioned the extent of their purchases.†   (source)
  • It is their intimate knowledge of every inch of the most rugged terrain on earth that is matched against our skill, cunning, and technology.†   (source)
  • Some deep and curious cunning made him add, "You talk as though you didn't want us to be friends any more."†   (source)
  • Well, maybe not technically— he was intelligent, cunning, and, as far as she could tell, completely without empathy, the kind of person who thought only about himself and what he wanted.†   (source)
  • I'll never forget the stillness, the hesitation, and a trace of something I'd never before seen on Ghosh's face: cunning.†   (source)
  • Headlined Clues are few in slaying of 4 , the article, which was a follow-up of the previous day's initial announcement of the murders, ended with a summarizing paragraph: The investigators are left faced with a search for a killer or killers whose cunning is apparent if his (or their) motive is not.†   (source)
  • I am so cunning, crafty and clever, so filled with deceit, guile and chicanery, such a knave, so shrewd, cagey as well as calculating, as diabolical as I am vulpine, as tricky as I am untrustworthy ...well, I told you there were not words invented yet to explain how great my brain is, but let me put it this way: the world is several million years old and several billion people have at one time or another trod upon it, but I, Vizzini the Sicilian, am, speaking with pure candor and modesty, the slickest, sleekest, sliest and wiliest fellow who has yet come down the pike.†   (source)
  • All his cunning returned.†   (source)
  • Several Iblis fell, but now another demon, more cunning than the others, had drifted around Magnus and was coalescing behind him, ready to strike— Alec didn't stop to think.†   (source)
  • The walkway was flagged in calculated disorder, hiding the cunning symmetry.†   (source)
  • Colonel William Harcourt, the cavalry officer who had led the capture of Charles Lee, wrote in a letter to his father that though the Americans remained ignorant of military order and large-scale maneuver, they had shown themselves capable of great cunning, great industry, and spirit of enterprise.†   (source)
  • The power and cunning of Communist politics lay in the fact that it appropriated this slogan.†   (source)
  • The Englishmen had hoarded these so cunningly that now, as the war was ending, they had three tons of sugar, one ton of coffee, eleven hundred pounds of chocolate, seven hundred pounds of tobacco, seventeen hundred pounds of tea, two tons of flour, one ton of canned beef, twelve hundred pounds of canned butter, sixteen hundred pounds of canned cheese, eight hundred pounds of powdered milk.†   (source)
  • He gave Janaki and me a cunning look.†   (source)
  • 'Do you remember that girl who was hitting me over the head with that shoe in that apartment in Rome, when we were both naked?' he asked with a look of cunning expectation.†   (source)
  • A cunning look narrowed her eyes.†   (source)
  • Enraged, Astaroth bent his cunning mind on finding the source of those who opposed him.†   (source)
  • The dark spirit under Circe's control is much more cunning than that.†   (source)
  • Pop was cunning and exuberant.†   (source)
  • Nor was there another legal mind as cunning and devious.†   (source)
  • New ones worse than old ones — more cunning, that's all.'†   (source)
  • She did not think any more of barber-surgeons than they were wont to think of cunning women such as she.†   (source)
  • Twice they worked their way stealthily downwind of ibex herds, but the animals sensed them with a cunning Mortenson couldn't help admiring, before they were close enough to attempt a shot.†   (source)
  • The men in his legions worshipped him not only for his courage and cunning but for his uncanny ability —to evade death even when facing appalling odds.†   (source)
  • They are, in fact, extraordinarily complex—cunning, even—in the way they conceal secret information about peculiardom.†   (source)
  • Despite all my cunning, I came in one afternoon to find her generously slathering her hands with my Jergen's.†   (source)
  • The only one excluded from this treatment was Singbe, who had been deemed by Judge Judson "a cunning, dangerous, and deadly murderer."†   (source)
  • ...I've got to say it, Saint Alex, that serpentine brain of yours hasn't lost its cunning.†   (source)
  • Here was a situation where all my speed, my physical strength, my cunning — none of it would do me any good.†   (source)
  • The look of thought was returning to her face, but in her face it had the quality of a look of cunning.†   (source)
  • I believe in barbecue in all its regional derivations, in its ethnic translations, in forms that range from white-tablecloth presentations of cunningly sauced costillas, to Chinese take-out spareribs that stain your fingers red, to the most authentic product of the tar-paper rib shacks of the Deep South.†   (source)
  • I had always known she had been born in the year of the monkey, but I'd never realized that its traits of deceit and cunning ran so strongly in her.†   (source)
  • Stealth, cunning.†   (source)
  • Second serve—a brief rally and then a cunning, slicing cross-court forehand from me.†   (source)
  • He was flexible and cunning enough to realize that some foes could not be defeated with force alone.†   (source)
  • One of their jobs was to execute the Knights Templar, a legendary band of Christian warriors known for their cunning and ferocity in battle.†   (source)
  • The next February, they had an extra-elaborate Chinese New Year's dinner, with cunning little dumplings, and balls, and buns, in addition to the usual hot pot with gold-chain bean threads.†   (source)
  • The most conspicuous government officials will often be the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the biggest faction.†   (source)
  • We can't depend on it being able to protect us against a cunning enough enemy.†   (source)
  • Oh, we'd been dying to get our hands on all those cunning outfits.†   (source)
  • So he jerked the string and as the cart came towards him the legs of the oxen moved and the carter's hands rose and fell and the drum-sticks he held in them came down upon the tiny drum in front of him-a real drum, cunningly made with cords up the sides and skin stretched tightly over the top.†   (source)
  • The plot has thickened-a twist of fate and cunning has put into their hands a letter that seals their deaths!†   (source)
  • I reeled sideways but fell into the cunning, waiting shout of another, and he screamed me back to the other one.†   (source)
  • That was the cunning thing.†   (source)
  • Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jockey.†   (source)
  • The incident was described in an article in a widely distributed sportsman's magazine as an example of the cunning and dangerous nature of the wolf, and of the boundless courage of the men who match themselves against him.†   (source)
  • He was cunning and apparently vicious and I did not know what kind of scene he might start.†   (source)
  • Under the circumstances, how could even the most committed racists among the faculty be diverted by the Professor's cunning dialectics?†   (source)
  • I had remembered them as little tricksters, pertinacious but foolish, with only a kind of village cunning; and I had assumed that for them studying meant only cramming.†   (source)
  • She took him on what she called "the grand tour," proudly showing off the multiple heat pumps insuring constant year-round temperature; the magnificent kitchen with electronic ovens and broilers operated from a central control panel; the cunning round holes in the ceiling which sprayed gentle light on dining-room table, bar, bridge table, and strategically located abstract statuary; the television screens faired into the walls of bedrooms, living room, dining room, and even kitchen; and the master bedroom's free form tub, which extended through the wall and into a tiny, shielding garden.†   (source)
  • MORE (With cunning) I'll answer that question for one person only, the King.†   (source)
  • They were cunning and they knew their own minds, they had stirred up plenty of trouble in their day, they were sure to be plotting something again now.†   (source)
  • At least, I knew it in terms of violence, and I knew he was as cunning as a wild animal, and far more dangerous.†   (source)
  • I know it's a waste of breath trying to convince you you're not a cunning real estate speculator.†   (source)
  • They both have that look of cunning little jugglers, violently small under some spotlight beam, preoccupied and silent, amusing themselves.†   (source)
  • Daniel Webster, according to his critics, fruitlessly appeased the slavery forces, Thomas Hart Benton was an unyielding and pompous egocentric, Sam Houston was cunning, changeable and unreliable.†   (source)
  • But then, one never knew—they were such cunning swine!†   (source)
  • In the silence they feared some cunning devilry of his, but they could not sit there for ever.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness and deception
  • All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness and ability to deceive
  • If she were Armstrong intent on murder, it was cunning that she would employ, not force.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's cunning.   (source)
  • That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a maneuver to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence.   (source)
  • Stupid and cunning, ruthless and magnanimous-and that there must be some dominating factor that reconciles his two natures.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • 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?"   (source)
    cunning = cleverness and deception
  • …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.   (source)
    cunning = being good at achieving goals through cleverness
  • He became cunning; he had idle time in which to devote himself to thoughts of trickery.   (source)
    cunning = clever and deceptive
  • His newborn cunning gave him poise and control.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui is very cunning.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • He is clever and cunning and resourceful, but he be not of man stature as to brain.   (source)
    cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
  • This was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning.   (source)
  • He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang.   (source)
    cunningly = cleverly
  • He is very old and very cunning.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant.   (source)
  • He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a wind sweep on the surface of the water.   (source)
    cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
  • Squirrels were chattering, birds singing, and overhead honked the wild-fowl driving up from the south in cunning wedges that split the air.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men, he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages, he...   (source)
    cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
  • Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from badger-colored veterans who could handle a buck alone to young black three-year-olds who thought they could.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • He was preeminently cunning, and could bide his time with a patience that was nothing less than primitive.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • There, in the warm litter above the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twenty-five eggs, about the size of a bantam's eggs, but with whitish skin instead of shell.   (source)
    cunningly = cleverly
  • "If the Count escape us this time, and he is strong and subtle and cunning, he may choose to sleep him for a century, and then in time our dear one," he took my hand, "would come to him to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw."   (source)
    cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
  • If it be so, then was he no common man, for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.'   (source)
  • The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • He would go down the hillside into the cultivated lands by night, and look very curiously at the villagers in their huts, but he had a mistrust of men because Bagheera showed him a square box with a drop gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into it, and told him that it was a trap.   (source)
    cunningly = cleverly
  • They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest hunters.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said, "Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some, and he know when he meet his match!"   (source)
    cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
  • Because of his very great love, he could not steal from this man, but from any other man, in any other camp, he did not hesitate an instant; while the cunning with which he stole enabled him to escape detection.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down the avenue.   (source)
    cunning = good at achieving goals through cleverness and deception
  • His cunning was wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence, shepherd intelligence and St. Bernard intelligence; and all this, plus an experience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as formidable a creature as any that intelligence roamed the wild.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced, and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the way he should go.   (source)
    cunningly = cleverly
  • and trust to cunning for want of speed.   (source)
    cunning = cleverness
  • A better book than I shall ever write was there; leaf after leaf presenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the reality of the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only because my brain wanted the insight, and my hand the cunning, to transcribe it.   (source)
  • While Hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her for ever, the admirable preacher was looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control.   (source)
    cunning = clever
  • But he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!   (source)
    cunningly = cleverly
  • Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal.   (source)
  • Silvered steel and gold inlay brightened their armor, and their warhelms were crested in a riot of silken plumes, feathers, and cunningly wrought heraldic beasts with gemstone eyes.†   (source)
  • She has a delightful laugh, full of mischief and cunning intelligence.†   (source)
  • She is a cunning and dangerous woman, said Aunt Lydia.†   (source)
  • That you have left no depth of cunning unplumbed in your quest to retrieve the memory?†   (source)
  • Don't make the mistake of underestimating a Ra'zac, for they are cunning and full of guile.†   (source)
  • Don't believe I'm not as cunning and stealthy as you are.†   (source)
  • Making nonsense of all that Touchable cunning.†   (source)
  • Bastas Pride And Dustfinger's Cunning "Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales.†   (source)
  • He was dark and charming, with a quick smile and cunning eyes.†   (source)
  • And they were so devilishly cunning of late.†   (source)
  • There was an expression of lunatic cunning in them.†   (source)
  • They filled us up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance.†   (source)
  • He had a look of trollish cunning on his face as he replied, "Plenty of room for all of us, Wood."†   (source)
  • I learned precisely how seditious and cunning an enemy could be.†   (source)
  • A concealed vent, cunningly let into the real wall, allowed air to enter from outside.†   (source)
  • And Snape s certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble.†   (source)
  • "Ah," said Oromis, "mad Galbatorix may be, but he's still as cunning as a fox.†   (source)
  • He had been guided only by his cunning and the single thing he knew about her: where she lived.†   (source)
  • Then the voice grew cunning and said, 'If you remember so clearly, tell me why you are here.'†   (source)
  • He hadn't realized he could be so clever, so cunning.†   (source)
  • They were so cunning and strong, how could any real man be expected to prevail against them?†   (source)
  • No. You want cold cunning, I should think, not courage.†   (source)
  • But I didn't have the cunning to think of it at the time.†   (source)
  • But the bars hold firm, and Maven, cunning, disgusting, awful Maven, is just out of reach.†   (source)
  • Yet Nehemia could easily be a cunning actress.†   (source)
  • We are one, you and I. Brothers in hate, brothers in cunning, brothers in the spirit of vengeance.†   (source)
  • And how cunningly spirit and body are knit together.†   (source)
  • He continued in a clipped tone, "My father was, if nothing else, a cunning man.†   (source)
  • There was a cunning glimmer in the man's eye.†   (source)
  • Why, Piter, where could I find another Mentat with your cunning and venom?†   (source)
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