cunning

clever, adroit, cunning, ingenious mean having or showing practical wit or skill in contriving. clever stresses physical or mental quickness, deftness, or great aptitude.

• • a person clever with horses

adroit often implies a skillful use of expedients to achieve one's purpose in spite of difficulties.

• • an adroit negotiator

cunning implies great skill in constructing or creating.

• • a filmmaker cunning in his use of special effects

ingenious suggests the power of inventing or discovering a new way of accomplishing something.

• • an ingenious software engineer

sly, cunning, crafty, wily, tricky, foxy, artful, slick mean attaining or seeking to attain one's ends by guileful or devious means. sly implies furtiveness, lack of candor, and skill in concealing one's aims and methods.

• • a sly corporate raider

cunning suggests the inventive use of sometimes limited intelligence in overreaching or circumventing.

• • the cunning fox avoided the trap

crafty implies cleverness and subtlety of method.

• • a crafty lefthander

wily implies skill and deception in maneuvering.

• • the wily fugitive escaped the posse

tricky is more likely to suggest shiftiness and unreliability than skill in deception and maneuvering.

• • a tricky political operative

foxy implies a shrewd and wary craftiness usually involving devious dealing.

• • a foxy publicity man planting stories

artful implies indirectness in dealing and often connotes sophistication or cleverness.

• • elicited the information by artful questioning

slick emphasizes smoothness and guile.

• • slick operators selling time-sharing

art, skill, cunning, artifice, craft mean the faculty of executing well what one has devised. art implies a personal, unanalyzable creative power.

• • the art of choosing the right word

skill stresses technical knowledge and proficiency.

• • the skill of a glassblower

cunning suggests ingenuity and subtlety in devising, inventing, or executing.

• • a mystery plotted with great cunning

artifice suggests technical skill especially in imitating things in nature.

• • believed realism in film could be achieved only by artifice

craft may imply expertness in workmanship.

• • the craft of a master goldsmith