crafty

comparative craftier · superlative craftiest

1. Skillful at deceiving others.

   For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 15:5

   4 more examples

   According to The State and Revolution, only an ignoramus or a crafty bourgeois could suggest that the workers are incapable of directly and collectively managing industry, the state, and the administration.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 505

   Glaucon will play devil's advocate (358c-d, thereby showing himself craftier than Thrasymachus, who is so unsly as to declare himself a wolf, openly, before the sheep; […])

   2001, Michael Palmer, Masters and Slaves: Revisioned Essays in Political Philosophy

   Together, with the help of the drunkard Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), the only District 12 citizen ever to win the Games, they challenge tributes that range from sadistic volunteers to crafty kids like the pint-sized Rue (Amandla Stenberg) to the truly helpless and soon-to-be-dead.

   2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV Club, archived from the original on 24 Mar 2012

   Los Angeles would still be a piddling little town in a desert if it weren’t for Sierra snowmelt and city officials crafty enough to snooker eastern California farmers out of their water rights.

   2023 August 6, Daniel Duane, “It’s August. Californians Are Still Skiing. Don’t Ask.”, in The New York Times

   Synonyms: cunning, wily

2. Sneaky; surreptitious.

   I took a crafty look at his hand of cards while he was out of the room.

3. Relating to, or characterized by, craft or skill; dexterous, clever.

   The lightning committee devised a crafty plan, based on Cavendish’s prescient theories of electricity, to surround a warehouse with metal rods, tipped with copper conductors, to draw impertinent discharges away from the unstable powder.

   2015, Steve Silberman, chapter 1, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, page 23

   2 more examples

   Make magazine, which celebrates “your right to tweak, hack and bend any technology to your own will,” has joined with the New York Hall of Science to gather more than 500 of the craftiest inventors, artists, technology enthusiasts, tinkerers and hobbyists to share their expertise.

   2011 September 15, Rachel Lee Harris, “The World Maker Faire in Queens Draws Inventors”, in The New York Times

   Can you envision a future Christmas where you print all your gifts instead of shop for them? It could soon be reality in even the most tech-averse household, and it might just end up saving the craftier among us lots of time and money. Why buy a $50 vase when you can print one for $2?

   2013 September 3, Brit Morin, “13 ways to decorate with 3-D style”, in CNN

4. datedMagical or occult, or allegedly so.

   a crafty science