How to Use cunning in a Sentence

cunning

1 of 2 adjective

• She was cunning enough to fool me.
• That’s Odysseus—the wiliness, that idea of the cunning trickster.
  — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 26 June 2022
• Who is clever and cunning and evil enough to take out the dictator of the Kang Dynasty?
  — Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Feb. 2023
• Mitt Romney in one of the most cunning never- Trump moments.
  — Fox News, 9 June 2018
• White is a cunning defender with quick feet, crafty hands and a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
  — Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 13 Feb. 2021
• It's so far removed that Catherine has to be stoic and cunning and wise all the time.
  — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 11 Sep. 2022
• Had the mountains been less steep or the enemy less cunning?
  — Washington Post, 26 Mar. 2021
• All at once a seductress and a hag; a cunning shapeshifter and a gullible fool tricked into the service of the devil.
  — Kate Wheeling, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Oct. 2022
• Quinn and Patricia haven’t shown the same cunning eye in Detroit.
  — Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press, 20 Mar. 2020
• Mesereau made the bizarre decision to cast Constand as a cunning, greedy schemer.
  — Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2021
• The cunning kitty was returned home, and the traveler was able to rebook his cat-free flight for the next day.
  — Laura L. Davis, USA TODAY, 23 Nov. 2022
• First, there’s the cunning brevity of the chapters—a hundred and twenty-nine of them—that makes a long story zip by.
  — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 3 June 2018
• Facebook games have started doing this as well, and in a much more cunning way.
  — James Hetherington, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2018
• In an attempt to right some wrongs, reformed bad girl Fiona reaches out to her cunning ex-boyfriend (Hii) to get the star back.
  — Kelsie Gibson, PEOPLE.com, 19 Nov. 2021
• The Chiefs might be more cunning than dominant this postseason, but the results are the same.
  — Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 3 Feb. 2024
• Remember the story about a cunning fox and a foolish goat?
  — Robert Krajewski, Forbes, 8 Apr. 2021
• Welles certainly looked the part as the knight and troublemaker, but gave him a cunning edge too.
  — CNN, 14 Jan. 2022
• And there's a side of him which is very cunning and very opportunistic and nimble.
  — CBS News, 7 Dec. 2022
• This time the sexpot is brighter, more cunning (and named Wanda Gershwitz!).
  — Wesley Morris, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2020
• In 1693, Asameni, an Akwamu royal, planned to seize control of the castle by way of a cunning ruse.
  — Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Quartz Africa, 13 July 2019
• Meet your new neighbor, the coyote, and find out why these cunning canids are on the rise in North America—and beyond.
  — National Geographic, 23 June 2020
• And now, for the fun part: Six cunning dogs, which are all either labradors or cocker spaniels, have been recruited.
  — Kelly Corbett, House Beautiful, 29 May 2020
• Tap into your wilful, cunning side with the help of deep, dark Pluto and use it to your advantage.
  — Jodie Layne, Allure, 9 July 2017
• Icelanders, meanwhile, have found a cunning way to get refunds.
  — The Economist, 12 Sep. 2019
• This summer, a cunning bandit stalked the streets of Zehlendorf, a village near Berlin, in search of a favorite quarry: shoes.
  — Claire Bugos, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Aug. 2020
• Any animal can learn to be cute, but learning to be helpful takes cunning, guile, savvy.
  — Joe Queenan, WSJ, 20 Jan. 2022
• Del Toro plays all of this with a seesaw cunning that keeps the audience agreeably off balance.
  — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 26 Sep. 2023
• The formula for their allure cuts a cunning line between candid and crude.
  — Richard Morgan, New York Times, 21 June 2018
• Other satellites make a cunning use of gravity to estimate the snow and ice mass.
  — Mejs Hasan, WIRED, 13 June 2018
• Only the strongest, most aggressive, and cunning coyotes get to pass down their genes—as opposed to the ones with floppy ears and wrinkly faces.
  — Matthew Every, Field & Stream, 7 Dec. 2023

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cunning

2 of 2 noun

• He may be a fraud, but you have to admire his cunning.
• After all, who else but Luther has the cunning to catch the guy?
  — Vulture, 21 Dec. 2022
• Vladimir Putin, the cunning despot and former KGB agent,...
  — Gregg Opelka, WSJ, 7 May 2019
• Few fish can match the blazing speed of a mako, the sheer power of a great white, or the great cunning of a tiger shark.
  — William McKeever, BostonGlobe.com, 3 July 2019
• And knowing the cunning of Taylor Swift, there may be a chance for Alwyn to jump on a track in the future.
  — Natalie Morin, refinery29.com, 24 Aug. 2019
• Most likely: his cunning will win out, at least over Cole.
  — Omar L. Gallaga, Arkansas Online, 1 Nov. 2022
• These bikes are not public, but private, and they are equipped with cunning locks.
  — The Economist, 16 Dec. 2017
• Their luck, joined with their cunning, provides the answer.
  — Tribune News Service, cleveland, 29 Oct. 2019
• But the son was already known for using cunning means to reach saintly ends.
  — Dan Zak, Washington Post, 17 Mar. 2021
• And, with the cunning that comes from millennia of evolution, the virus exploits all of our most human habits.
  — Anchorage Daily News, 24 Sep. 2020
• Yet there is no cunning or malice to Miranda’s approach to The Circle.
  — Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 3 Jan. 2020
• He could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite.
  — Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
• The conceptual cunning of Rivera Garza’s stories cannot account for the passion that warms them.
  — Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 4 July 2022
• Jamie’s reward for his legal cunning is an awkward-as-hell car ride back to the ranch with Beth, which ends in another assault.
  — Josh St. Clair, Men's Health, 27 Nov. 2022
• If there were a reliable form of Taste which could be acquired through cash or cunning, someone would have bottled and branded it by now.
  — A-LIST, 2 Oct. 2017
• To go in knowing little or nothing about the play may be the purest way to experience its dramatic cunning.
  — Naveen Kumar, Variety, 17 Apr. 2022
• But the country’s socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, has a cunning plan.
  — The Economist, 21 Sep. 2017
• Some of the leaders back then were hucksters, and some of the believers were easy marks, but the movement cannot be dismissed merely as a collision of the cunning and the credulous.
  — Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 24 May 2021
• Finally the nobleman, impressed with the rabbi’s cunning, turned to leave.
  — Caren Schnur Neile, Sun Sentinel, 3 Oct. 2022
• After just two episodes, Nick has established himself as the coach to watch this season by playing the game with just the right mix of cunning and sincerity.
  — Sabienna Bowman, refinery29.com, 2 Mar. 2020
• If talks fail, Bennett could appear to have been outsmarted by Putin's cunning and could be blamed for the conflict having worsened.
  — Tia Goldenberg, ajc, 6 Mar. 2022
• Villanelle’s hiding-in-plain-sight proposition is one that, for the fashion-obsessed among us, makes the cunning show all the more captivating.
  — Steff Yotka, Vogue, 27 Apr. 2018
• The fiction in this sci-fi was Ava: a truly convincing humanoid, powered by A.I., with all the cunning and guile of a Machiavellian human.
  — Kevin Dupzyk, Popular Mechanics, 16 Jan. 2019
• Maradona was the platonic ideal of a pibe, all virtuoso skill and impetuous cunning.
  — Rory Smith, New York Times, 25 Nov. 2020
• There is immense reward in hauling your own body to the top of a wall using nothing but flexibility, cunning, and the strength of a couple of fingers.
  — Jacqueline Detwiler-George, Popular Mechanics, 16 Mar. 2021
• As Georges’s compulsion to film his exploits grows, so does his cunning, the camera an excuse to fully indulge his psychosis.
  — Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times, 30 Apr. 2020
• Italy, a team in full bloom with unmatched class and, in the waning minutes, old-school cunning, had knocked Belgium’s golden generation out of the tournament.
  — Samindra Kunti, Forbes, 4 July 2021
• Behind the cleverness and charm, honed at first under the tuition of Jesuit priests, always lurked ruthlessness as well as cunning.
  — The Economist, 7 Sep. 2019
• Harris’ Duke plays the villainous snob with a degree of cunning that keeps us uncertain of the extent of his depravity.
  — Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2022
• This collection of pale-faced swashbucklers moves toward the opposing ship with all the cunning of a hungry zombie.
  — Charlie Theel, Ars Technica, 17 Mar. 2018

Last Updated: 25 Apr 2024