Adjective
a canny card player, good at psyching out his opponents
warm and canny under the woolen bedcovers, we didn't mind the chilly Scottish nights
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
When, after the post-war years of austerity and misery, the country established itself once again in the 1960s as a world power to be reckoned with, thanks to the dual strengths of the canny Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the telegenic young Queen.—Alexander Larman, TIME, 5 May 2024 Pop culture is most fascinating as a mirror reflecting us and the people who make it, and Ripley has provided unnervingly canny reflections.—Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2024 The rise of hyper-personalization is trouncing the one-size-fits-all holiday thanks to canny travel fixers and tour operators that are threading the desire for off-menu, bespoke experiences into travel's ever-evolving DNA.—Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 Apr. 2024 When her father dies, Alexandra Bergson is entrusted with the family farm and soon becomes prosperous, thanks to some canny risk-taking and her near-mystical identification with the land.—Chelsea Leu, The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2024 The rare artist who can pull off such a canny move, Beyoncé now represents something bigger than music.—Jason Parham, WIRED, 29 Mar. 2024 There’s no truer visual metaphor for this than Sen’s canny choice of town to play his fictional Limbo: real-life Aussie settlement Coober Pedy, where most homes and businesses are subterranean, built right into the region’s sandstone, as if cave times had returned.—Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times, 21 Mar. 2024 His upbeat demeanor and canny knowledge of the inside game of growing a company has benefited hundreds of startups.—Steven Levy, WIRED, 15 Mar. 2024 Celebrities, like memoirists, are becoming more and more canny about feeding their personal life directly to the public.—Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 13 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'canny.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Adjective
originally Scots & regional northern English, going back to early Scots, "free from risk, sagacious, prudent, cautious," probably from can "ability" (noun derivative of cancan entry 1) + -y-y entry 1
Share