How to Use cunning in a Sentence

cunning

1 of 2 adjective
  • She was cunning enough to fool me.
  • Your words can be sharp and cunning today.
    — Usa Today, USA Today, 20 Oct. 2025
  • Goodman aims to be a cunning thief.
    — Bennett Durando, Denver Post, 7 June 2026
  • The child is as smart and cunning as Dunk is thick and guileless.
    — Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2026
  • Sorrentino pulls it off in a few cunning ways.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 27 Aug. 2025
  • And Halston has a cunning plan.
    — Kaycee Sloan, Cincinnati Enquirer, 16 Jan. 2026
  • And Halston has a cunning plan.
    — Kaycee Sloan, Cincinnati Enquirer, 13 Feb. 2026
  • Facebook games have started doing this as well, and in a much more cunning way.
    — James Hetherington, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2018
  • Icelanders, meanwhile, have found a cunning way to get refunds.
    — The Economist, 12 Sep. 2019
  • And there's a side of him which is very cunning and very opportunistic and nimble.
    — CBS News, 7 Dec. 2022
  • What could be more cunning and disgusting than training dogs to commit anal rape?
    — David Frum, The Atlantic, 21 May 2026
  • 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
  • Any animal can learn to be cute, but learning to be helpful takes cunning, guile, savvy.
    — Joe Queenan, WSJ, 20 Jan. 2022
  • Mesereau made the bizarre decision to cast Constand as a cunning, greedy schemer.
    — Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2021
  • That’s Odysseus—the wiliness, that idea of the cunning trickster.
    — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 26 June 2022
  • Welles certainly looked the part as the knight and troublemaker, but gave him a cunning edge too.
    — CNN, 14 Jan. 2022
  • The formula for their allure cuts a cunning line between candid and crude.
    — Richard Morgan, New York Times, 21 June 2018
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Deciding on which portable toilet to line up for is a practice of great skill and cunning.
    — Alex Cortez, NOLA.com, 4 Feb. 2021
  • The central characters are stylish, cunning, and painfully hot.
    — Christopher Ros, Glamour, 7 July 2021
  • 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
  • Other satellites make a cunning use of gravity to estimate the snow and ice mass.
    — Mejs Hasan, WIRED, 13 June 2018
  • The former president and his allies had luck and a cunning strategy on their side.
    — Maggie Haberman, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2024
  • Del Toro plays all of this with a seesaw cunning that keeps the audience agreeably off balance.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 26 Sep. 2023
  • As sharp and merciless as her namesake, Shiv rivals her father in terms of sheer cunning.
    — Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2023
  • 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

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
  • Others praised the pup's cunning.
    — Alice Gibbs, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Aug. 2025
  • These bikes are not public, but private, and they are equipped with cunning locks.
    — The Economist, 16 Dec. 2017
  • But the son was already known for using cunning means to reach saintly ends.
    — Dan Zak, Washington Post, 17 Mar. 2021
  • 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
  • Because Maradona, in a burst of cunning and trickery, also used his hand.
    — Esteban Campanela, CNN Money, 25 Nov. 2025
  • Landing a good apartment in New York City can take some cunning.
    — Matthew Sedacca, Curbed, 5 Nov. 2025
  • The confidence that began Carrick’s spell in charge will need to be matched with new cunning and craft.
    — Carl Anka, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2026
  • Honest Abe is forced to scheme, relying on grit and cunning to win the votes to abolish slavery.
    — Kevin P. Sullivan, Entertainment Weekly, 26 June 2026
  • 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
  • But Muck is no Epstein, malevolent and cunning.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 2 Mar. 2026
  • Soldiers have always relied on their stomachs as much as their military cunning in times of conquest.
    — Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Nov. 2021
  • Some characters are badass due to their cunning, their stealth, their intelligence, their righteiousness.
    — Carrie Wittmer, Rolling Stone, 14 Nov. 2022
  • 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
  • Maradona was the platonic ideal of a pibe, all virtuoso skill and impetuous cunning.
    — Rory Smith, New York Times, 25 Nov. 2020
  • But the book’s seeming impartiality does serve to disguise its cunning.
    — Christopher Hawthorne, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2023
  • 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
  • Finally the nobleman, impressed with the rabbi’s cunning, turned to leave.
    — Caren Schnur Neile, Sun Sentinel, 3 Oct. 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
  • 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
  • Luke Shaw’s technique and cunning at centre-back deserved to be better rewarded.
    — Laurie Whitwell, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2025
  • Is there any corroborating evidence—in the language, say—of such cunning?
    — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 10 Oct. 2021
  • The conceptual cunning of Rivera Garza’s stories cannot account for the passion that warms them.
    — Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 4 July 2022
  • The evil, mocking cunning of this virus is to have rendered all those temples of delight and enlightenment potential death traps.
    — Anastasia Edel, The New York Review of Books, 22 Mar. 2020
  • Despite framing his actions in terms of criminal cunning, Al has a visionary streak.
    — Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture, 18 Dec. 2021
  • Yet there is no cunning or malice to Miranda’s approach to The Circle.
    — Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 3 Jan. 2020
  • But the country’s socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, has a cunning plan.
    — The Economist, 21 Sep. 2017
  • Unable to outrun the Bitchfist, the Hand earns his reputation for cunning and courage.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 22 June 2026
  • BlueAugury’s sort may have evolved the cunning to outwit and evade even the brainiest vertebrates; but from oneselves there’s no escape.
    — Mandy-Suzanne Wong, Longreads, 5 Feb. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cunning.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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