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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Artful \Art"ful\, adjective [From {Art}.]
1. Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill. [Archaic] ''Artful strains.'' ''Artful terms.'' --Milton.
2. Artificial; imitative. --Addison.
3. Using or exhibiting much art, skill, or contrivance; dexterous; skillful.
He [was] too artful a writer to set down events in exact historical order. --Dryden.
4. Cunning; disposed to cunning indirectness of dealing; crafty; as, an artful boy. [The usual sense.]
Artful in speech, in action, and in mind. --Pope.
The artful revenge of various animals. --Darwin.
Syn: Cunning; skillful; adroit; dexterous; crafty; tricky; deceitful; designing. See {Cunning}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
artful
adjective
1: not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of frankness; "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who...exemplified...the most disagreeable traits of his time"- David Cannadine; "a disingenuous excuse" [syn: {disingenuous}] [ant: {ingenuous}]
2: marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft; "the artful dodger"; "an artful choice of metaphors" [ant: {artless}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
96 Moby Thesaurus words for "artful": Byzantine, Machiavellian, Machiavellic, acute, adroit, ambidextrous, arch, astute, cagey, calculating, canny, chiseling, clever, collusive, covinous, crafty, crooked, cunning, cute, deceitful, deep, deep-laid, designing, devious, dexterous, diplomatic, dishonest, disingenuous, double, double-dealing, double-faced, double-minded, double-tongued, doublehearted, duplicitous, facile, faithless, false, false-principled, falsehearted, feline, finagling, forsworn, foxy, fraudulent, furtive, guileful, indirect, ingenious, insidious, insincere, inventive, knowing, oily, pawky, perfidious, perjured, politic, ready, resourceful, scheming, serpentine, sharp, shifty, shrewd, slick, slippery, sly, smooth, snaky, sneaky, sophistical, specious, stealthy, strategic, suave, subtile, subtle, superficial, supple, surreptitious, tactical, treacherous, trickish, tricksy, tricky, two-faced, uncandid, underhand, underhanded, unfrank, unsincere, untruthful, vulpine, wary, wily
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |