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canny

[kan-ee]

Example Sentences Origin

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adjective

careful; cautious; prudent: a canny reply.

astute; shrewd; knowing; sagacious: a canny negotiator.

skilled; expert.

frugal; thrifty: a canny housewife.

Scot.

safe to deal with, invest in, or work at (usually used with a negative).

gentle; careful; steady.

snug; cozy; comfortable.

pleasing; attractive.

Archaic. having supernatural or occult powers.

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adverb Also, can·ni·ly.

in a canny manner.

Scot. carefully; cautiously.

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Canny is always a great word to know.

So is callithumpian. Does it mean:

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

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Origin:
1630–40; can¹ + -y¹

Related forms

can·ni·ness, noun

o·ver·can·ny, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To canny

Example Sentences

Herzog is as canny about the film world as he is about the natural one.

He has found some canny ways to tempt them to settle.

One nice thing about the internet is that each of us has the ability, if we're canny and careful, to enrage thousands of people.

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Herzog is as canny about the film world as he is about the natural one.

He has found some canny ways to tempt them to settle.

One nice thing about the internet is that each of us has the ability, if we're canny and careful, to enrage thousands of people.

He has proved that he can still play trumpet with the ghostly tone and canny timing that established him in the jazz pantheon.

Felicity not only has perfect foresight, she has also been canny enough to dodge taxes.

His is playing that has temperament, poetry, a canny use of coloristic resource and an extraordinary empathy with the audience.

The fear must be that more openness means fewer opportunities for canny trading, and lower margins.

No doubt, canny proliferators will soon dig even deeper and better-armored holes.

Canny traders have found a lucrative new strategy: sell a firm's stock short and then spread rumours about its accounts.

It has proved to be a canny investor, spotting opportunities and frequently turning a sizable profit on its investments.

But his failure to transcend party politics does not mean it was not canny to try.

Canny governments can work with the grain of this psychology.

Eager investors and canny locals have found ways around the rules.

And other research has shown that even quite inexperienced tadpoles can be canny when it comes to things that might eat them.

Swift, canny book scanner bodes publishing mischief a-plenty.

The canny pop orchestra's aesthetic jet set, vintage-chic, more than.

Many blockbuster products have their roots in bright ideas, rigorous research and canny marketing, rather than luck.

Police officers around the country have responded to these rulings with canny alacrity.

The canny chancellor has noticed that bottom-up activism against inequality is on the rise everywhere.

Porter was deploying the concept in her own canny rendition of it.

More recently, these collectors have realised that they have also been canny investors.

Ephron, the canny essayist, screenwriter and film director.

Wicks was widely recognized as zealous, canny and willing to pull strings to make the school possible.

He developed a canny acquisition strategy to cement the firm's top-three position in its chosen markets.

Freeman projects a kindness, patience and canny intelligence that cut against the movie's fast pace and pumped-up shock effects.

Through canny acquisitions it has managed to appear home-grown there.

It is among these wines rather than the expensive big-name ones that canny buyers often find the best bargains.

To try, foreign retailers will have to be canny and brave.

It would be more accurate to call him a canny survivor.

But the country has also benefited from some canny political leadership.

Sullivan's video is a canny satire of foolishly romantic, extended-adolescent narcissism.

Bill-gave promise of vigorous product from these canny and mettlesome men.

Canny college officials, in turn, have found a tactical way to respond.

But he is best known for his canny bets against mortgage-backed bonds and financial shares.

But canny stock pickers will find that some airlines have not looked so attractive in years.

But he's too canny to make a movie in which an adult hurts any ol' child.

Even those who think he is canny enough to tack right after winning wonder if he has the mettle to face down his party.

He was already prosperous in his mid-20s and canny with money.

Like all canny entrepreneurs, drug dealers have a knack for branding their goods with evocative names.

Overnight, dozens of cutters were thrown out of commission and onto the mud to rot, or into the arms of canny yachtsmen.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

canny (ˈkænɪ)

—*adj* , -nier, -niest
1.	shrewd, esp in business; astute or wary; knowing
2.	dialect (Scot), (Northeast English) good or nice: used as a general term of approval
3.	(Scot) lucky or fortunate

—*adv*
4.	dialect (Scot), (Northeast English) quite; rather: a canny long while

[C16: from can¹ (in the sense: to know how) + -y¹]

'cannily

—*adv*

'canniness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

canny

1630s, Scottish and northern England formation from can (v.) in its sense of "know how to." Often used superciliously of Scots by their southern neighbors, implying "thrift and an eye to the main chance."

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Related Words

ca'canny coony

coony

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